MAY-DAY 



AND OTHER PIECES 



BT 



RALPH WALDO EMERSON. 



^ 



,A^ 




BOSTON: 
JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY, 

lAlS. TICKNOR & FIELDS, AND FIELDS, OiOOOD, & CO. 

18 7 5. 



76 lU'*' 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1867, by 

RALPH WALDO EMERSON, 

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 



NUV 29 1907, 



Univhrsity Press : Welch, Bigelow, & Co., 
Cambridge. 



CONTENTS. 

»— 

Pagh 

May-Day i 

The Adiroi^dacs ...... 4^ 

Occasional and Miscellaneous Pieces. 

Brahma . . 65 

Nemesis . • 67 

Fate 69 

Freedom 7° 

Ode sung in the Town Hall, Concord, July 4, 

1857 72 

Boston Hymn 75 

Voluntaries 81 

Love and Thought 89 

Lover's Petition 9° 

Una 92 

Letters 94 

Rubies 95 

Merlin's Song 96 

The Test ......... 97 

Solution 98 

Nature and Life. 

Nature . . . . . . .105 

The Romany Girl 109 



IV CONTENTS. 

Days in 

The Chartist's Complaint 112 

My Garden 114 

The Titmouse 119 

Sea-Shore 125 

Song of Nature 128 

Two Rivers 134 

Waldeinsamkeit 136 

Terminus 140 

The Past 143 

The Last Farewell 145 

In Memoriam 148 

Elements. 

Experience 157 

Compensation 159 

Politics 161 

Heroism 163 

Character 164 

Culture 165 

Friendship 166 

Beauty 168 

Manners 170 

Art ^ • . . . 172 

Spiritual Laws 174 

Unity 175 

Worship 176 

Quatrains 179 

Translations ..••••••• 193 



M A Y - D A Y . 



I 



D 



MAY-DAY. 

AUGHTER of Heaven and Earth, coy Sprinjr, 
With sudden passion languishing, 
Maketh all things softly smile, 
Painteth pictures mile on mile, 
Holds a cup with cowslip-wreaths, 
Whence a smokeless incense breathes. 
Girls are peeling the sweet willow, 
Poplar white, and Gilead-tree, 
And troops of boys 
Shouting with whoop and hilloa, 
And hip, hip, three times three. 
The air is full of whistlings bland ; 
What was that I heard 



MAY-DAY. 

Out of the hazy land ? 

Ilarp of the wind, or song of bird, 

Or clapping of shepherd's hands, 

Or vagrant booming of the air, 

Voice of a meteor lost in day ? 

Such tidings of the starry sphere 

Can this elastic air convey. 

Or haply 'twas the cannonade 

Of the pent and darkened lake, 

Cooled by the pendent mountain's shade. 

Whose deeps, till beams of noonday break, 

Afflicted moan, and latest hold 

Even into May the iceberg cold. 

Was it a squirrel's pettish bark. 

Or clarionet of jay ? or hark, 

Where yon wedged line the Nestor leads. 

Steering north with raucous cry 

Through tracts and provinces of sky. 

Every night alighting down 



MAY-DAY. 

In new landscapes of romance, 

Where darkling feed the clamorous clans 

By lonely lakes to men unknown. 

Come the tumult whence it will, 

Voice of sport, or rush of wings, 

It is a sound, it is a token 

That the marble sleep is broken, 

And a change has passed on things. 

Beneath the calm, within the light, 
A hid unruly appetite 
Of swifter life, a surer hope, 
Strains every sense to larger scope, 
Impatient to anticipate 
The halting steps of aged Fate. 
Slow grows the palm, too slow the pearl : 
When Nature falters, fain would zeal 
Grasp the felloes of her wheel, 
And grasping give the orbs another whirl. 



MAY-DAY. 

Turn swiftlier round, tardy ball! 
And sun this frozen side, 
Bring hither back the robin's call, 
Bring back the tulip's pride. 

Why chidest thou the tardy Spring ? 
The hardy bunting does not chide ; 
The blackbirds make the maples ring 
With social cheer and jubilee ; 
The redwing flutes his o-ka-lee, 
The robins know the melting snow ; 
The sparrow meek, prophetic-eyed, 
Her nest beside the snow-drift weaves, 
Secure the osier j^et will hide 
Her callow brood in mantling leaves ; 
And thou, by science all undone, 
Why only must thy reason fail 
To see the southing of the sun ? 



MAY-DAY. 

As we thaw frozen flesh with snow, 
So Spring will not, foolish fond, 
Mix polar night with tropic glow. 
Nor cloy iis with unshaded sun, 
Nor wanton skip with bacchic dance, 
But she has the temperance 
Of the gods, whereof she is one, — 
Masks her treasury of heat 
Under east-winds crossed with sleet. 
Plants and birds and humble creatures 
Well accept her rule austere ; 
Titan-born, to hardy natures 
Cold is genial and dear. 
As Southern wrath to Northern right 
Is but straw to anthracite ; 
As in the day of sacrifice. 
When heroes piled the pyre. 
The dismal Massachusetts ice 
Burned more than others' fire. 



MAY-DAY. 

So Spring guards with surface cold 
The garnered heat of ages old : 
Hers to sow the seed of bread, 
That man and all the kinds be fed ; 
And, when the sunlight fills the hours. 
Dissolves the crust, displays the flowers. 

The world rolls round, — mistrust it not, 
Befalls again what once befell ; 
All things return, both sphere and mote, 
And I shall hear my bluebird^s note, 
And dream the dream of Auburn dell. 

When late I walked, in earlier days, 
All was stiff and stark ; 
Knee-deep snows choked all the ways, 
In the sky no spark ; 
Firm-braced I sought my ancient woods. 
Struggling through the drifted roads ; 



MAY-DAY. 

The wliited desert knew me not, 
Snow-ridges masked each darling spot ; 
The summer dells, by genius haunted, 
One arctic moon had disenchanted. 
All the sweet secrets therein hid 
By Fancy, ghastly spells undid. 
Eldest mason, Frost, had piled, 
With wicked ingenuity, 
Swift cathedrals in the wild ; 
The piny hosts were sheeted ghosts 
In the star-lit minster aisled. 
I found no joy : the icy wind 
Might rule the forest to his mind. 
Who would freeze in frozen brakes ? 
Back to books and sheltered home, 
And wood-fire flickering on the walls, 
To hear, when, 'mid our talk and games, - 
Without the baffled nortli-wiiHl calls. 
But soft! a sultry morning breaks; 
1* 



10 MAY-DAY. 

The cowslips make the brown brook gay ; 

A happier hour, a longer day. 

Now the sun leads in the May, 

Now desire of action wakes, ^ 

And the wish to roam. 

The caged linnet in the spring 
Hearkens for the choral glee, 
When his fellows on the wing 
Migrate from the Southern Sea ; 
When trellised grapes their flowers unmask, 
And the new-born tendrils twine, 
The old wine darkling in the cask 
Feels the bloom on the living vine, 
And bursts the hoops at hint of spring: 
And so, perchance, in Adam's race. 
Of Eden's bower some dream-like trace 
Survived the Flight, and swam the Flood, 
And wakes the wish in vounirest blood 



MAY-DAY. 11 

To tread the forfeit Paradise, 

And feed once more the exile's eyes; 

And ever when the happy child 

In May beholds the blooming; wild, 

And hears in heaven the bluebird sing, 

"Onward," he cries, ''j^oiir baskets bring-, — 

In the next field is air more mild. 

And o'er yon hazy crest is Eden's balmier spring." 

Not for a regiment's parade, 
Nor evil laws or rulers made, 
Blue Walden rolls its cannonade, 
But for a lofty sign 
Which the Zodiac threw, 
That the bondage-days are told, 
And waters free as winds shall flow. 
Lo ! how all the tribes combine 
To rout the flying foe. 
See, every patriot oak-leaf throws 



12 MAY-DAY. 

His elfin length upon the snows, 
Not idle, since the leaf all day 
Draws to the spot the solar ray, 
Ere sunset quarrying inches a>, i, 
And half-way to the mosses brown ; 
While the grass beneath the rime 
Has hints of the propitious time, 
And upward pries and perforates 
Through the cold slab a thousand gates, 
Till green lances peering through 
Bend happy in the welkin blue. 

April cold with dropping rain 
Willows and lilacs brings again. 
The whistle of returning birds, 
And trumpet-lowing of the herds. 
The scarlet maple-keys betray 
What potent blood hath modest ^lay ; 
What fiery force the earth renews. 



iM AY-DAY. 13 

The wealth of forms, the flush of hues ; 

Joy shed in rosy waves abroad 

Flows from the heart of Love, the Lord. 

Hither rolls the storm of heat ; 
I feel its finer billows beat 
Like a sea which me infolds ; 
Heat with viewless fingers moulds, 
Swells, and mellows, and matures, 
Paints, and flavors, and allures. 
Bird and brier inly warms, 
Still enriches and transforms. 
Gives the reed and lily length. 
Adds to oak and oxen strength, 
Boils the world in tepid lakes, 
Burns the world, yet burnt remakes; 
Enveloping heat, enchanted robe. 
Wraps the daisy and the globe, 
Transforming what it doth infold, 



14 MAY-DAY. 

Life out of death, new out of old, 

Painting fawns' and leopards' fells, 

Seethes the gulf-encrimsoning shells. 

Fires gardens with a joyful blaze 

Of tulips, in the morning's rays. 

The dead log touched bursts into leaf. 

The wheat-blade whispers of the sheaf. 

What god is this imperial Heat, 

Earth's prime secret, sculpture's seat? 

Doth it bear hidden in its heart 

Water-line patterns of all art. 

All figures, organs, hues, and graces ? 

Is it Dsedalus ? is it Love ? 

Or walks in mask almighty Jove, 

And drops from Power's redundant horn 

All seeds of beauty to be born ? 

Where shall we keep the holiday, 
And duly greet the entering May!' 



MAY-DAY. 1^ 

Too strait and low our cottage doors, 

And all unmeet our carpet floors; 

Nor spacious court, nor monarch's hall, 

Suffice to hold the festival. 

Up and away! where haughty woods 

Front the liberated floods: 

We will climb the broad-backed hills. 

Hear the uproar of their joy ; 

We will mark the leaps and gleams 
Of the new-delivered streams, 
And the murmuring rivers of sap 
Mount in the pipes of the trees, 
Giddy with day, to the topmost spire, 
Which for a spike of tender green 
Bartered its powdery cap ; 
And the colors of joy in the bird. 
And the love in its carol heard, 
Frog and lizard in holiday coats, 
And turtle brave in his golden spots ; 



16 MAY-DAY. 

We will hear the tiny roar 

Of the insects evermore, 

While cheerful cries of crag and plain 

Reply to the thunder of river and main 

As poured the flood of the ancient sea 
Spilling over mountain chains, 
Bending forests as bends the sedge, 
Faster flowing o'er the plains, — 
A world-wide wave with a foaming edge 
That rims the running silver sheet, — 
So pours the deluge of the heat 
Broad northward o'er the land, 
Painting artless paradises, 
Drugging herbs with Syrian spices, 
Fanning secret fires which glow 
In columbine and clover-blow. 
Climbing the northern zones, 
Where a thousand pallid towns 



MAY-DAY. 17 

Lie like cockles by the main, 
Or tented armies on a plain. 
The million-handed sculptor moulds 
Quaintest bud and bh)ssom folds, 
The million-handed painter pours 
Opal hues and purple dye ; 
Azaleas flush the island floors, 
And the tints of heaven reply. 

Wreaths for the May ! for happy Spring 
To-day shall all her dowry bring-, 
The love of kind, the joy, the grace. 
Hymen of element and race. 
Knowing well to celebrate 
With song and hue and star and state, 
With tender light and youthful cheer. 
The spousals of the new-born year. 
Lo Love's inundation poured 
Over space and race abroad I 



18 MAY-DAY. 

Spring is strong and virtuous, 
Broad-sowing, cheerful, plenteous, 
Quickening underneath the mould 
Grains beyond the price of gold. 
So deep and large her bounties are, 
That one broad, long midsummer day 
Shall to the planet overpay 
The ravage of a year of war. 

Drug the cup, thou butler sweet, 
And send the nectar round ; 
The feet that slid so long on sleet 
Are glad to feel the ground. 
Fill and saturate each kind 
With good according to its mind, 
Fill each kind and saturate 
With good agreeing with its fate. 
Willow and violet, maiden and man. 



MAY-DAY. , i 

The bitter-sweet, the haunting air 
Creepeth, bloweth everywhere ; 
It preys on all, all prey on it, 
Blooms in beauty, thinks in wit. 
Stings the strong with enterprise, 
Makes travellers long for Indian skies, 
And where it comes this courier fleet 
Fans in all hearts expectance sweet, 
As if to-morrow should redeem 
The vanished rose of evening's dreaa 
By houses lies a fresher green, 
On men and maids a ruddier mien, 
As if time brought a new relay 
Of shining virgins every May, 
And Summer came to ripen maids 
To a beauty that not fades. 

The ground-pines wash their rusty green, 
The maple-tops their crimson tint, 



20 MAY-DAY. 

On the soft path each track is seen, 
The girl's foot leaves its neater print. 
The pebble loosened from the frost 
Asks of the urchin to be tost. 
In flint and marble beats a heart, 
The kind Earth takes her children's part. 
The green lane is tha school-boy's friend, 
Low leaves his quarrel apprehend, 
The fresh ground loves his top and ball, 
The air rings jocund to his call, 
The brimming brook invites a leap, 
He dives the hollow, climbs the steep. 
The youth reads omens where he goes, 
And speaks all languages the rose. 
The wood-fly mocks with tiny noise 
The far halloo of human voice ; 
The perfumed berry on the spray 
Smacks of faint memories far away. 
A subtle chain of countless rings 



MAV-DAY. gl 

The next unto the farthest brings, 
And, striving to be man, the worm 
Mounts through all the spires of form. 

I saw the bud-crowned Spring go forth, 
Stepping daily onward north 
To greet staid ancient cavaliers 
Filing single in stately train. 
And who, and who are the travellers ? 
They were Night and Day, and Day and Night, 
Pilgrims wight with step forthright. . 
I saw the Dsiys deformed and low. 
Short and bent by cold and snow ; 
The merry Spring threw wreaths on them, 
Flower-wreaths gay with bud and bell ; 
Many a flower and many a gem, 
They were refreshed by the smell, 
They shook the snow from hats and shoon, 
Thoy put their April raiment on ; 



22 MAY-DAY. 

And those eternal forms, 

Unhurt by a thousand storms, 

Shot up to the height of the sky again, 

And danced as merrily as young men. 

I saw them mask their awful glance 

Sidewise meek in gossamer lids ; 

And to speak my thought if none forbids, 

It was as if the eternal gods, 

Tired of their starry periods. 

Hid their majesty in cloth 

Woven of tulips and painted moth. 

On carpets green the maskers march 

Below May's well-appointed arch, 

Each star, each god, each grace amain, 

Every joy and virtue speed, 

Marching duly in her train, 

And fainting Nature at her need 

Is made whole again. 



MAY-DAY. 23 

^Twas the vintage-da}^ of fiol;] and wood, 
When magic wine for bards is brewed ; 
Every tree and stem and chink 
Gushed with syrup to the brink. 
The air stole into the streets of towns, 
And betrayed the fund of joy 
To the high-school and medalled boy : 
On from hall to chamber ran, 
From youth to maid, from boy to man, 
To babes, and to old eyes as well. 
'Once more,^ the old man cried, 'ye clouds, 
Airy turrets purple-piled. 
Which once my infancy beguiled, 
Beguile me with the wonted spell. 
1 know ye skilful to convoy 
The total freight of hope and joy 
Into rude and homely nooks. 
Shed mocking lustres on shelf of books, 
On farmer's b^'re, on meadow-pipes, 



24 MAY-DAY. 

Or on a pool of dancing chips. 

I care not if the pomps you show 

Be what they soothfast appear, 

Or if yon realms in sunset glow 

Be bubbles of the atmosphere. 

And if it be to you allowed 

To fool me with a shining cloud. 

So only new griefs arc consoled 

By new delights, as old by old. 

Frankly I will be your guest, 

Count your change and cheer the Lest. 

The world hath overmuch of pain, — 

If Nature give me joy again, 

Of such deceit I '11 not complain.' 

Ah I well I mind the calendar. 
Faithful through a thousand years. 
Of the painted race of flowers. 
Exact to days, exact to hours, 



MAY-DAY. 25 

Counted on the spacious dial 
Yon broidered zodiac girds. 
I know the pretty ahnanac 
Of the punctual coming-back, 
On their due days, of the birds. 
I marked them yesterraorn, 
A flock of finches darting 
Beneath the crystal arch. 
Piping, as they flew, a march, — 
Belike the one they used in parting 
Last year from yon oak or larch ; 
Dusky sparrows in a crowd, 
Diving, darting northward free, 
Suddenly betook them all. 
Every one to his hole in the wall, 
Or to his niche in the apple-tree. 
I greet with joy the choral trains 
Fresh from pahns and Cuba's canes. 
Best gems of Nature's cabinet. 



26 MAY-DAY. 

With dews of tropic morning wet, 

Beloved of children, bards, and Spring, 

birds, your perfect virtues bring, 

Your song, your forms, your rhythmic flight, 

Your manners for the heart's delight, 

Nestle in hedge, or barn, or roof, 

Here weave your chamber weather-proof, 

Forgive our harms, and condescend 

To man, as to a lubber friend, 

And, generous, teach his awkward race 

Courage, and probity, and grace 1 

Poets praise that hidden wine 
Hid in milk we drew 
At the barrier of Time, 
When our life was new. 
We had eaten fairy fruit, 
We were quick from head to foot. 
All the forms we looked on shone 



MAY-DAY. 27 

As with diamond dews thereon. 
What cared we for costly joys, 
The Museum's far-fetched toys ? 
Gleam of sunshine on the wall 
Poured a deeper cheer than all 
The revels of the Carnival. 
We a pine-grove did prefer 
To a marble theatre, 
Could with gods on mallows dine, 
Nor cared for spices or for wine. 
Wreaths of mist and rainbow spanned, 
Arch on arch, the grimmest land ; 
Whistle of a woodland bird 
Made the pulses dance, 
Note of horn in valleys heard 
Filled the region with romance. 

None can tell how sweet, 
How virtuous, the morning air; 



2B MAY-DAY. 

Every accent vibrates well ; 

Not alone the wood-bird's call, 

Or shouting boys that chase their ball, 

Pass the height of minstrel skill, 

But the ploughman's thoughtless cry, 

Lowing oxen, sheep that bleat. 

And the joiner's hammer-beat. 

Softened are above their will. 

All grating discords melt. 

No dissonant note is dealt. 

And though thy voice be shrill 

Like rasping file on steel, 

Such is the temper of the air, 

Echo waits with art and care. 

And will the faults of song repair. 

So by remote Superior Lake, 
And by resounding Mackinac, 
When northern storms the forest shake. 



MAY-DAY. 

And billows on the long beach break, 

The artful Air doth separate 

Note by note all sounds that grate, 

Smothering in her ample breast 

All but godlike words, 

Reporting to the happy ear 

Only purified accords. 
Strangely wrought from barking waves, 
Soft music daunts the Indian braves, — 
Convent-chanting which the child 
Hears pealing from the panther's cave 
And the impenetrable wild. 

One musician is sure, 
His wisdom will not fail, 
He has not tasted wine impure, 
Nor bent to passion frail. 
Age cannot cloud his memory, 
Nor ffrief untune his voice, 



30 MAY-DAY. 

Ranging down the ruled scale 

From tone of joy to inward wail, 

Tempering the pitch of all 

In his windy cave. 

He all the fables knows, 

And in their causes tells, — 

Knows Nature's rarest moods. 

Ever on her secret broods. 

The Muse of men is coy. 

Oft courted will not come ; 

In palaces and market square? 

Entreated, she is dumb ; 

But my minstrel knows and tells 

The counsel of the gods. 

Knows of Holy Book the spells, 

Knows the law of Night and Day, 

And the heart of girl and boy, 

The tragic and tlie gay, 

And what is writ on Table Rourd 



MAY-DAY. 

Of Arthur and his peers, 

What sea and land discoursing say 

In sidereal years. 

He renders all his lore 

In numbers wild as dreams, 

Modulating all extremes,— 

What the spangled meadow saith 

To the children who have faith ; 

Only to children children sing. 

Only to youth will spring be spring. 

Who is the Bard thus magnified ? 
When did he sing ? and where abide ? 

Chief of song where poets feast 
Is the wind-harp which thou seest 
In the casement at my side. 

.^olian harp, 
How strangely wise thy strain! 



31 



32 MAY-DAY. 

Gay for youth, gay for youth, 

(Sweet is art, but sweeter truth,) 

In the hall at summer eve 

Fate and Beauty skilled to we^ve. 

From the eager opening strings 

Rung loud and bold the song. 

Who but loved the wind-harp's note ? 

How shoulil not the poet doat 

On its mystic tongue, 

With its primeval memory. 

Reporting what old minstrels said 

Of Merlin locked the harp within, — 

Merlin paying the pain of sin. 

Pent in a dungeon made of air, — 

And some attain his voice to hear. 

Words of pain and cries of fear, 

But pillowed all on melod}^ 

As fits the griefs of bards to be. 

And what if that all-echoing shell, 



MAY-DAY. 33 

Which thus the buried Past can tell, 

Should rive the Future, and reveal 

What his dread folds would fain conceal ? 

It shares the secret of the earth, 

And of the kinds that owe her birth. 

Speaks not of self that mystic tone, 

But of the Overgods alone : 

It trembles to the cosmic breath, — 

As it heareth, so it saith; 

Obeying meek the primal Cause, 

It is the tongue of mundane laws. 

And this, at least, I dare affirm. 

Since genius too has bound and' *t^n^/^* 

There is no bard in all the choir, 

Not Homer's self, the poet sire. 

Wise Milton's odes of pensiv^e pleasure, 

Or Shakspeare, whom no mind can measure, 

Nor Collins' verse of tender paiti, 

Xor Byron's clarion of disdain, 

2* C 



34 MAY-DAY. 

Scott, the delight of generous boys, 

Or Wordsworth, Pan's recording voice, - 

Not one of all can put in verse, 

Or to this presence could rehearse. 

The sights and voices ravishing 

The boy knew on the hills in spring, 

When pacing through the oaks he heard 

Sharp queries of the sentry-bird. 

The heavy grouse's sudden whir, 

The rattle of the kingfisher ; 

Saw bonfires of the harlot flies 

In the lowland, when day dies ; 

Or marked, benighted and forlorn, 

The first far signal-fire of morn. 

These syllables that Nature spoke. 

And the thoughts that in him woke, 

Can adequately utter none 

Save to his ear the wind-harp lone. 

And best can teach its Delphian chord 



Ill AY-DAY. ?0 

llow Nature to the soul is moored, 

If once again that silent string, 

As erst it wont, would thrill and ring. 

Not long ago, at eventide, 
It seemed, so listening, at my side 
A window rose, and, to say sooth. 
I looked forth on the fields of youth : 
1 saw fair boys bestriding steeds, 
I knew their forms in fancy weeds, 
Long, long concealed by sundering fates, 
Mates of my youth, — yet not my mates, 
Stronger and bolder for than I, 
With grace, with genius, well attired, 
And then as now from far admired, 
Followed with love 
They knew not of, 
With passion cold and shy. 
joy, for what recoveries rare ! 



36 MAY-DAY. 

Eenewed, I breathe Elysian air, 
See youth's glad mates in earliest bloom, 
Break not my dream, obtrusive tomb 1 
Or teach thou, Spring! the grand recoil 
Of life resurgent from the soil 
Wherein was dropped the mortal spoil. 

Soft on the south-wind sleeps the haze 
So on thy broad mystic van 
Lie the opal-colored days, 
And waft the miracle to man. 
Soothsayer of the eldest gods, 
Repairer of what harms betide, 
Revealer of the inmost powers 
Prometheus proffered, Jove denied ; 
Disclosing treasures more than true. 
Or in what far to-morrow due ; 
Speaking by the tongues jf flowers, 
By the ten-ton gued laurel speaking. 



MAY-DAY. 37 

Singing by the oriole songs, 

Heart of bird the man's heart seeking ; 

Whispering hints of treasure hid 

Under Morn's unlifted lid. 

Islands looming just beyond 

The dim horizon's utmost bound ; — 

Who can, like thee, our rags upbraid, 

Or taunt us with our Lope decayed ? 

Or who like thee persuade, 

Making the splendor of the air. 

The morn and sparkling dew, a snare ? 

Or who resent 

Thy genius, wiles, and blandishment ? 

There is no orator prevails 
To beckon or persuade 
Like thee the youth or maid : 
Thy birds, thy songs, thy brooks, thy gales, 
Thy blooms, thy kinds. 



38 MAY-DAY. 

Thy echoes in the wilderness, 

Soothe pain, and age, and love's distress, 

Fire fainting will, and build heroic minds. 

For thou, Spring ! canst renovate 
All that high God did first create. 
Be still his arm and architect, 
Rebuild the ruin, mend defect ; 
Chemist to vamp old worlds with new, 
Coat sea and sky with heavenlier blue, 
New-tint the plumage of the birds. 
And slough decay from grazing herds. 
Sweep ruins from the scarped mountain, 
Cleanse the torrent at the fountain. 
Purge alpine air by towns defiled. 
Bring to fair mother fairer child. 
Not less renew the heart and brain, 
Scatter the sloth, wash out the stain. 
Make the aged eye sun-clear. 



MAY-DAY. 39 

To parting soul bring grandeur near. 

Under gentle types, my Spring 

Masks the might of Nature's king, 

An energy that searches thorough 

From Chaos to the dawning morrow ; 

Into all our human plight. 

The soul's pilgrimage and flight ; 

In city or in solitude. 

Step by step, lifts bad to good, 

Without halting, without rest, 

Lifting Better up to Best ; 

Planting seeds of knowledge pure, 

Through earth to ripen, through heaven endure. 



THE ADIRONDACS. 

A JOURNAL, 

DEDICATED TO MY FELLOW-TRAVELLERS IN AUGUST, iS^Sw 

Wise and polita, — and if I drew 
Their several portraits, you would own 
Chaucer had no such worthy crew 
Nor Boccace in Decameron. 



THE ADIRONDACS. 

WE crossed Champlain to Keeseville with our 
friends, 
Thence, in strong country carts, rode up the forks 
Of the Ausable stream, intent to reach 
The Adirondac lakes. At Martin's Beach 
We chose our boats ; each man a boat and guide, — 
Ten men, ten guides, our company all told. 

Next morn, we swept with oars the Saranac, 
With skies of benediction, to Round Lake, 
Where all the sacred mountains drew around us, 
Tahawus, Seaward, Maclntyre, Baldhead, 
And other Titans without muse or name. 



44 THE ADIRONDACS. 

Pleased with these grand companions, we glide on, 
Instead of flowers, crowned with a wreath of hills, 
And made our distance wider, boat from boat, 
As each would hear the oracle alone. 
lly the bright morn the gay flotilla slid 
Through files of flags that gleamed like bayonets, 
Through gold-motli-haunted beds of pickerel-flower. 
Through scented banks of lilies white and gold. 
Where the deer feeds at night, the teal by day, 
On through the Upper Saranac, and up 
Pere Raquette stream, to a small tortuous pass 
Winding through grassy shallows in and out, 
Two creeping miles of rushes, pads, and spongo, 
To Follansbee Water, and the Lake of Loons. 

Northward the length of Follansbee we rowed. 
Under low mountains, whose unbroken ridge 
Ponderous with beechen forest sloped the shore. 
A pause and council : then, where near the head 



THE ADIKONDACS. 45 

On the east a bay makes inward to the land 
Between two rocky arms, we climb the bank, 
And in the twilight of the forest noon 
Wield the first axe these echoes ever heard. 
We cut young trees to make our poles and thwarts, 
Barked the white spruce to weatherfend tlie roof, 
Then struck a light, and kindled the camp-fire. 

The wood was sovran with centennial trees, — 
Oak, cedar, maple, poplar, beech and fir, 
Linden and spruce. In strict society 
Three conifers, white, pitch, and Norway pine, 
Five-leaved, three-leaved, and two-leaved, grew 

thereby. 
Our patron pine was fifteen feet in girth. 
The maple eight, beneath its shapely tower. 

* Welcome ! ' the wood god murmured through 
the leaves, — 



46 THE ADIRONDACS. 

' Welcome, though late, unknowing, yet known 

to me/ 
Evening drew on ; stars peeped through maple- 
boughs, 
Which o'erhung, like a cloud, our camping fire. 
Decayed millennial trunks, like moonlight flecks, 
Lit with phosphoric crumbs the forest floor. 

Ten scholars, wonted to lie warm and soft 
In well-hung chambers daintil}^ bestowed. 
Lie here on hemlock-boughs, like Sacs and Sioux, 
And greet unanimous the joyful change. 
So fast will Nature acclimate her sons. 
Though late returning to her pristine ways. 
Off soundings, seamen do not suffer cold ; 
And, in the forest, delicate clerks, unbrowned, 
Sleep on the fragi*ant brush, as on down-beds. 
Up with the dawn, they fancied the light air 
That circled freshl}^ in their forest dress 



THE ADIKOXDACS. 47 

Made tliem to boys again. Happier tluit they 

Slipped off their pack of duties, leagues behind. 

At the first mounting of the giant stairs. 

No placard on these rocks warned to the polls, 

No door-bell heralded a visitor, 

No courier waits, no letter came or went, 

Nothing was ploughed, or reaped, or bought, or 

sold ; 
The frost might glitter, it would blight no crop. 
The falling rain will spoil no holiday. 
We were made freemen of the forest laws, 
All dressed, like Nature, fit for her own ends, 
Essaying nothing she cannot perform. 

In Adirondac lakes. 
At morn or noon, the guide rows bareheaded* 
Shoes, flannel shirt, and kersey trousers make 
His brief toilette : at night, or in the rain. 
He dons a surcoat which he doflt's at morn : 



48 THE ADIRONDACS. 

A paddle in the right hand, or an oar, 
And in the left, a gun, his needful arms. 
By turns we praised the stature of our guides, 
Their rival strength and suppleness, their skill 
To row, to swim, to shoot, to build a camp, 
To climb a lofty stem, clean without boughs 
Full fifty feet, and bring the eaglet down : 
Temper to face wolf, bear, or catamount, 
And wit to trap or take him in his lair. 
Sound, ruddy men, frolic and innocent. 
In winter, lumberers ; in summer, guides ; 
Their sinewy arms pull at the oar untired 
Three times ten thousand strokes, from morn to 
eve. 

Look to yourselves, ye polished gentlemen! 
No city airs or arts pass current here. 
Your rank is all reversed : let men of cloth 
Bow to the stalwart churls in overalls : 



THE ADIRONDACS. 49 

They are the doctors of the wilderness, 

And we the low-prized laymen. 

In sooth, red flannel is a saucy test 

Which few can put on with impunity. 

What make you, master, fumbling at the oar? 

Will you catch crabs ? Truth tries pretension 

here. 
The sallow knows the basket-maker's thumb ; 
The oar, the guide's. Dare you accept the tasks 
He shall impose, to find a spring, trap foxes, 
Tell the sun's time, determine the true north, 
Or stumbling on through vast self-similar woods 
To thread by night the nearest way to camp ? 

Ask you, how went the hours ? 
All day we swept the lake, searched every cove, 
North from Camp Maple, south to Osprey Bay, 
Watching when the loud dogs should drive in deer, 
Or whipping its rough surface for a trout ; 

3 D 



50 THE ADIKONDACS. 

Or bathers, diving from the rock at noon ; 
Challenging Echo by our guns and cries ; 
Or listening to the laugliter of the loon ; 
Or, in the evening twilight's latest red, 
Beholding the procession of the pines ; 
Or, later j^et, beneath a lighted jack, 
In the boat's bows, a silent night-hunter 
Stealing with paddle to the feeding-grounds 
Of the red deer, to aim at a square mist. 
Hark to that muffled roar ! a tree in the woods 
Is fallen : but hush ! it has not scared the buck 
Who stands astonished at the meteor light. 
Then turns to bound away, — is it too late ? 

Sometimes we tried our rifles at a mark. 
Six rods, sixteen, twenty, or forty-five ; 
Sometimes our wits at sally and retort. 
With laughter sudden as the crack of rifle ; 
Or parties scaled the near acclivities 



THE ADIRO^DACS. 51 

Competing seekers of a rumored lake, 
Whose unauthenticated waves we named 
Lake Probability, — our carbuncle, 
Long sought, not found. 

Two Doctors in the camp 
Dissected the slain deer, weighed the trout's brain, 
Captured the lizard, salamander, shrew, 
Crab, mice, snail, dragon-fly, minnow, and moth ; 
Insatiate skill in water or in air 
Waved the scoop-net, and nothing came amiss ; 
The while, one leaden pot of alcohol 
Gave an impartial tomb to all the kinds. 
Not less the ambitious botanist sought plants. 
Orchis and gentian, fern, and long whip-scirpus. 
Rosy polygonum, lake-margin's pride, 
Hypnum and hydnum, mushroom, sponge, and 

moss. 
Or harebell nodding in the gorge of falls. 



52 THE ADIRONDACS. 

Above, the eagle flew, the osprey screamed, 
The raven croaked, owls hooted, the woodpecker 
Loud hammered, and the heron rose in the swamp. 
As water poured through hollows of the hills 
To feed this wealth of lakes and rivulets, 
So Nature shed all beauty lavishly 
From her redundant horn. 

Lords of this realm, 
Bounded by dawn and sunset, and the day 
Rounded by hours where each outdid the last 
In miracles of pomp, we must be proud, 
As if associates of the sylvan gods. 
We seemed the dwellers of the zodiac, 
So pure the Alpine element we breathed. 
So light, so lofty pictures came and went. 
We trode on air, contemned the distant town, 
Its timorous ways, big trifles, and we planned 
That we should build, hurd-by, a spacious lodge, 



THE ADIRONDACS. 63 

And how we should come hither with our sons, 
Ilerejifter, — willing- they, and more adroit. 

Hard fare, hard bed, and comic misery, — 
The midge, the blue-fly, and the mosquito 
Painted our necks, hands, ankles, wnth red bands : 
But, on the second day, we heed them not. 
Nay, we saluted them Auxiliaries, 
Whom earlier we had chid with spiteful names. 
For who defends our leafy tabernacle 
From bold intrusion of the travelling crowd, — 
Who but the midge, mosquito, and the fly, 
Which past endurance sting the tender cit. 
But w^hich we learn to scatter with a smudge, 
Or baffle by a veil, or slight by scorn ? 

Our foaming ale we drunk from hunters' pans. 
Ale, and a sup of wine. Our steward gave 
\'onison and trout, potatoes, beans, wheat-bread ; 



54 THE ADIRONDACS. 

All ate like abbots, and, if any missed 

Their wonted convenance, chcerly hid the loss 

With hunters' appetite and peals of mirth. 

And Stillman, our guides' guide, and Commodore, 

Crusoe, Crusader, Pius ^ueas, said aloud, 

" Chronic dyspepsia never came from eating 

Food indigestible": — then murmured some. 

Others applauded him who spoke the truth. 

Nor doubt but visitings of graver thought 
Checked in these souls the turbulent heyday 
'Mid all the hints and glories of the home. 
For who can tell what sudden privacies 
Were sought and found, amid the hue and cry 
Of scholars furloughed from their tasks, and let 
Into this Oreads' fended Paradise, 
As chapels in the city's thoroughfares. 
Whither gaunt Labor slips to wipe his brow, 
And meditate a moment on Heaven's rest. 



THE ADIRONDACS. 55 

Judge with what sweet surprises Nature spoke 
To each apart, lifting her lovely shows 
To spiritual lessons pointed home. 
And as through dreams in watches of the night, 
So through all creatures in their form and ways 
Some mystic hint accosts the vigilant. 
Not clearly voiced, but waking a new sense 
Inviting to new knowledge, one with old. 
Hark to that petulant chirp I what ails the war- 
bler ? 
Mark his capricious ways to draw the eye. 
Now soar again. What wilt thou, restless bird, 
Seeking in that chaste blue a bluer light, 
Thirsting in that pure for a purer sky ? 

And presently the sky is changed ; world ! 
What pictures and what harmonies are thine ! 
The clouds are rich and dark, the air serene, 
So like the soul of me, what if 't were me ? 



56 THK ADIRONDACS. 

A melanclioly better than all mirth. 
Comes the sweet sadness at the retrospect, 
Or at the foresight of obscurer years ? 
Like yon slow-sailing cloudy promontory, 
Whereon the purple iris dwells in beauty 
Superior to all its gaudy skirts. 
And, that no day of life may lack romance, 
The spiritual stars rise nightly, shedding down 
A private beam into each several heart. 
Daily the bending skies solicit man. 
The seasons chariot him from this exile. 
The rainbow hours bedeck his glowing chair, 
The storm-winds urge the heavy weeks along, 
Suns haste to set, that so remoter lights 
BeckoTi the wanderer to his vaster home 

With a vermilion pencil mark the day 
When of our little fleet three cruising skiffs 
Entering Big Tuppcr, bound for the foaming Falls 



THE ADIRONDACS. 57 

Of loud Bog River, suddenly confront 

Two of our mates returning with swift oars. 

One held a printed journal waving high 

Caught from a late-arriving traveller, 

r)ig with great news, and shouted the report 

For which the world had waited, now firm fact, 

Of the wire-cable laid beneath the sea, 

And landed on our coast, and pulsating 

With ductile fire. Loud, exulting cries 

From boat to boat, and to the echoes round, 

Greet the glad miracle. Thought's new-found path 

Shall supplement henceforth all trodden ways, 

Match God's eq.htlor with a zone of art. 

And lift man's public action to a height 

Worthy the enormous cloud of witnesses. 

When linked hemispheres attest his deed. 

We have few moments in the longest life 

Of such delight and wondar as tiieie grew, — 

Nor yet unsuited to that solitude : 



58 THE ADIRONDACS. 

A burst of joy, as if we told the fact 

To ears intelligent ; as if gray rock 

And cedar grove and cliff and lake should know 

This feat of wit, this triumph of mankind ; 

As if we men were talking in a vein 

Of sympathy so large, that ours was theirs. 

And a prime end of the most subtle element 

Were fairly reached at last. Wake, echoing caves ! 

Bend nearer, faint day-moon I Yon thundertops, 

Let them hear well! His theirs as much as ours. 

A spasm throbbing through the pedestals 
Of Alp and Andes, isle and continent, 
Urging astonished Chaos with a thrill 
To be a brain, or serve the brain of man. 
The lightning has run masterless too long ; 
lie must to school, and learn his verb and noun, 
And teach his nimbleness to earn his wage, 
Spelling with guided tongue man's mc«sages 



THE ADIRONDACS. 59 

Shot through the weltering pit of the salt sea 

And yet I marked, even in the manly joy 

Of our great-hearted Doctor in his boat, 

(Perchance I erred,) a shade of discontent ; 

Or was it for mankind a generous shame, 

As of a luck not quite legitimate. 

Since fortune snatched from wit the lion's part ? 

Was it a college pique of town and gown, 

As one within whose memory it burned 

That not academicians, but some lout, 

Found ten j^ears since the Californian gold ? 

And now, again, a hungry company 

Of traders, led by corporate sons of trade, 

Perversely borrowing from the shop the tools 

Of science, not from the philosophers, 

Had won the brightest laurel of all time. 

'T was always thus, and will be ; hand and head 

Are ever rivals : but, tliough this be swift, 

The other slow, — this the Prometheus, 



60 THE ADIRONDACS. 

And that the Jove, — yet, howsoever hid, 

It was from Jove the other stole his fire, 

And, without Jove, the good had never been. 

It is not Iroquois or cannibals. 

But ever the free race with front sublime, 

And these instructed by their wisest too, 

Who do the feat, and lift humanity. 

Let not him mourn who best entitled wa^, 

Nay, mourn not one : let him exult. 

Yea, plant the tree that bears best apples, plant. 

And water it with wine, nor watch askance 

Whether thy sons or strangers eat the fruit : 

Enough that mankind eat, and are refreshed. 

We flee away from cities, but we bring 
The best of cities with us, these learned classifiers, 
Men knowing what they seek, armed eyes of experts. 
We praise the guide, we praise tlie forest life ; 
But will we sacrifice our dear-boui>ht lore 



THE ADlROXDACi. 61 

Of books and arts and trained experiment, 

Or count the Sioux a match for Agassiz ? 

no, not we! Witness the shout that shook 

Wild Tupper Lake ; witness the mute all-hail 

The joyful traveller gives, when on the verge 

Of craggy Indian wilderness he hears 

From a log-cabin stream Beethoven's notes 

On the piano, play-ed with master's hand. 

' Well done ! ' he cries ; ' the bear is kept at bay, 

The lynx, the rattlesnake, the flood, the fire ; 

All the fierce' enemies, ague, hunger, cold, 

This thin spruce roof, this clayed log-wall, 

This wild plantation will suffice to chase. 

Now speed the gay celerities of art, 

What in the desart was impossible 

Within four walls is possible again, — 

Culture and libraries, mysteries of skill, 

Traditioned fame of masters, eager strife 

Of keen competing youths, joined or alone 



62 THE AUIKONDACS. 

To outdo each other, and extort applause. 
Mind wakes a iiow-born giatit from her sleep 
Twirl the old wheels ! Time takes fresh start again, 
On for a thousand years of genius more/ 

The holidays were fruitful, but must end ; 
One August evening had a cooler breath ; 
Into each mind intruding duties crept ; 
Under the cinders burned the fires of home ; 
Nay, letters found us in our paradise ; 
So in the gladness of the new event 
We struck our camp, and left the happy hills. 
The fortunate star that rose on us sank not ; 
The prodigal sunshine rested on the land, 
The rivers gambolled onward to the sea, 
And Nature, the inscrutable and mute, 
Permitted on her infinite repose 
Almost a smile to steal to cheer her sons, 
As if one riddle of the Sphinx were guessed. 



OCCASIONAL AND MISCELLA- 
NEOUS PIECES 



BRAHMA. 

IF the red slayer think he sUiys, 
Or if the slain think he is slain, 
They know not well the subtle ways 
I keep, and pass, and turn again. 

Far or forgot to me is near ; 

Shadow and sunlight are the same; 
The vanished gods to me appear ; 

And one to me are shame and fame. 

They reckon ill who leave me out; 

When me they fly, I am the wings ; 
1 am the doubter and the doubt, 

And I tlie hymn the Brahmin sings. 



66 BRAHMA. 

The strong gods pine for my abode, 
And pine in vain the sacred Seven ; 

But thou, meek lover of the good ! 
Find me, and turn thy back on heaven. 



NEMESIS. 

A LREADY blushes in thy cheek 

The bosom-thought which thou must speak ; 
The bird, how far it haply roam 
By cloud or isle, is flying home ; 
The maiden fears, and fearing runs 
Into the charmed snare she shuns ; 
And every man, in love or pride, 
Of his fate is never wide. 

Will a woman's fan the ocean smooth ? 
Or prayers the stony ParcsB sooth. 
Or coax the thunder from its mark ? 
Or tapers light the chaos dark ? 



68 np:mesis. 

In spite of Virtue and the Muse, 
Nemesis will have her dues, 
And all our struggles and our toils 
Tighter wind the giant coils. 



FATE. 

"|~XEEP in the man sits fast his fate 

To mould his fortunes mean or great: 
Unknown to Cromwell as to me 
Was Cromwell's measure or degree ; 
Unknown to him, as to his horse, 
If he than his groom be better or worse. 
He works, plots, fights, in rude affairs, 
With squires,^ lords, kings, his craft compares. 
Till late he learned, through doubt and fear. 
Broad England harbored not his peer : 
Obeying Time, the last to own 
The Genius from its cloudy throne. 
For the prevision is allied 
Unto the thing so signified ; 
Or say, the foresight that awaits 
Is the same Genius that creates. 



FREEDOM. 

/^NOE I wished I might rehearse 

Freedom's psean in my verse, 
That the slave who caug-ht the strain 
Should throb until he snapped his chain. 
But the Spirit said, ' Not so ; 
Speak it not, or speak it low ; 
Name not lightly to be said, 
Gift too precious to be prayed. 
Passion not to be expressed 
But by heaving of the breast : 
Yet, — wouldst thou the mountain find 
Where this deity is shrined, 
Who gives to seas and sunset skies 



FRKKDUM. 71 

Their unspent beauty of surprise, 
And, when it lists him, waken can 
Brute or savage into man ; 
Or, if in tliy heart he shine, 
Blends the starry fates with thine. 
Draws angels nigh to dwell with thee. 
And makes thy thoughts archangels be ; 
Freedom's secret wilt thou know? — 
Counsel not with flesh and blood ; 
Loiter not for cloak or food ; 
Right thou feelest, rush to do.' 



ODE SUNG IN THE TOWN HALL, 

CONCORD, JULY 4, 1 857. 

r\ TENDERLY the haughty day 
Fills his blue urn with fire ; 
One morn is in the mighty heaven, 
And one in our desire. 

The cannon booms from town to town, 

Our pulses are not less, 
The joy-bells chime their tidings down, 

Which children's voices bless. 

For He that flung the broad blue fold 

O'er-mantling land and sea, 
One third part of the sky unrolled 

For the banner of the free. 



FOUKTH OK JULY ODE. 73 

The men are ripe of Saxon kind 

To build an equal state, — 
To take the statute from the mind, 

And make of duty fate. 

United States ! the ages plead, — 
Present and Past in under-song, — 

Go put your creed into your deed, 
Nor speak with double tongue. 

For sea and land don't understand, 

Nor skies without a frown 
See rights for which the one hand fights 

By the other cloven down. 

Be just at home ; then write your scroll 

Of honor o'er the sea, 
And bid the broad Atlantic roll, 

A ferry of the free. 



74 FOrRTII OF JULY ODE. 

And, heiiceforth, there shall be no chain, 

Save underneath the sea 
The wires shall murmur through the main 

Sweet songs of Liberty. 

The conscious stars accord above, 

The waters wild below, 
And under, through the cable wove. 

Her fiery errands go. 

For He that worketh high and wise, 

Nor pauses in his plan. 
Will take the sun out of the skies 

Ere freedom out of man. 



BOSTON HYMN. 

READ IN MUSIC HALL, JANUARY I, 1 863. 

rpHE word of the Lord by night 

To the watching Pilgrims came. 
As they sat by the seaside, 
And filled their hearts with flame. 

God said, I am tired of kings, 
I sufier them no more ; 
Up to my ear the morning brings 
The outrage of the poor. 

Think ye I made this ball 

A field of havoc and war, 

Where tyrants great and tyrants small 

Might harry the weak and poor? 



/G BOSTON HYMN. 

My angel, — his name is Freedom, — 
Choose him to be your king ; 
ne shall cut pathways east and west, 
And fend you with his wing. 

Lo ! I uncover the land 
Which I hid of old time in the West, 
As the sculptor uncovers the statue 
When he has wrought his best ; 

I show Columbia, of the rocks 
Which dip their foot ia the seas. 
And soar to the air-borne flocks 
Of clouds, and the boreal fleece. 

I will divide my goods ; 
Call in the wretch and slave : 
None shall rule but the humble. 
And none but Toil bhall have. 



BOSTON HYMN. 77 

1 will have uover a noble, 
No lineaore counted ^.Teat ; 
Fishers and choppers and ploughmen 
Shall constitute a state. 

Go, cut down trees in the forest, 
And trim the strajghtest boughs ; 
Cut down trees in the forest, 
And build me a wooden house. 

Call the people together, 
The young men and the sires, 
The digger in the harvest field, 
nireling, and him that hires ; 

And here in a pine state-house 
They shall choose men to rule 
In every needful faculty, 
In church, and state, and school. 



78 BOSTON HYMN. 

Lo, now ! if these poor men 
Can govern the land and sea, 
And make just laws below the Bun, 
As planets faithful be. 

And ye shall succor men ; 

'T is nobleness to serve ; 

Help them who cannot help again : 

Beware from right to swerve. 

I break your bonds and masterships, 
And I unchain the slave : 
Free be his heart and hand henceforth 
As wind and wandering wave. 

T cause from every creature 
His proper good to flow : 
As much as he is and doeth, 
So much he shall bestow. 



BOSTON HYMN. V9 

But, laying hands on another 
To coin his labor and sweat, 
He goes in pawn to his victim 
For eternal years in debt. 

To-day unbind the captive, 
So only are ye unbound ; 
Lift up a people from the dust, 
Trump of their rescue, sound ! 

Pay ransom to the owner, 

And fill the bag to the brim. 

Who is the owner? The slave is owner, 

And ever was. Pay him. 

North ! give him beauty for rags. 
And honor, South ! for his shame ; 
Nevada ! coin thy golden crags 
With Freedom's image and name. 



80 BOSTON HYMN. 

Up ! and the dusky race 
That sat in darkness long, — 
Be swift their feet as antelopes, 
And as behemoth strong. 

Come, East and West and North, 
By races, as snow-flakes, 
And carry my purpose forth, 
Which neither halts nor shakes. 

My will fulfilled shall be, 
For, in daylight or in dark, 
My thunderbolt has eyes to see 
His way home to the mark. 



VOLUNTARIES. 

I. 

X OW and mournful be the strain, 

Haughty thought be far from me; 
Tones of penitence and pain, 
Meanings of the tropic sea ; 
Low and tender in the cell 
Where a captive sits in chains, 
Crooning ditties treasured well 
From his Afric's torrid plains. 
Sole estate his sire bequeatlied — 
Hapless sire to hapless son — 
Was the wailing song lie broalijed. 
And his chain when life was dune. 

4* ] 



82 VOLUNTARIES. 

What his fault, or what his crime ? 
Or what ill planet crossed his prime ? 
Heart too soft and will too weak 
To front the fate that crouches near, — 
Dove beneath the vulture's beak ; — 
Will song dissuade the thirsty spear ? 
Dragged from his mother's arms and breast, 
Displaced, disfurnished here, 
His wistful toil to do his best 
Chilled by a ribald jeer. 
Great men in the Senate sate, 
Sage and hero, side by side, 
Building for their sons the State, 
Which they shall rule with pride. 
They forbore to break the chain 
Which bound the dusky tribe. 
Checked by the owners' fierce disdain. 
Lured by " Union " as the bribe. 
Destiny sat by, and said, 



VOLUNTARIES. 83 

* Pang for pang- your seed shall pay, 
Hide in false peace your coward head, 
I bring round the harvest-day.' 



IL 

Freedom all winged expands, 

Nor perches in a narrow place ; 

Her broad van seeks unplanted lands ; 

She loves a poor and virtuous race. 

Clinging to a colder zone 

Whose dark sky sheds the snow-flake down, 

The snow-flake is her banner's star, 

Her stripes the boreal titreamers are. 

Long she loved the Northman well ; 

Now the iron age is done, 

She will not refuse to dwell 

With the offspring of the Sun ; 

Foundling of the desert far, 



84 VOLUNTARIES. 

Where palms plume, siroccos blaze, 

He roves unhurt the burning ways 

In climates of the summer star. 

He has avenues to God 

Hid from men of Northern brain, 

Far beholding-, without cloud, 

What these with slowest steps attain. 

If once the generous chief arrive 

To lead him willing to be led. 

For freedom he will strike and strive, 

And drain his heart till he be dead. 



in. 

In an age of fops and toys, 
Wanting wisdom, void of right, 
Who shall nerve heroic boys 
To hazard all in Freedom's light,- 
Break sharply oil' their jolly game 



VOLUNTARIKS. 8j 

Forsake their comrades gay, 

And quit proud homes and youthful dames, 

For famine, toil, and fray ? 

Yet on the nimble air benign 

Speed nimbler messages. 

That waft the breath of grace divine 

To hearts in sloth and ease. 

So nigh is grandeur to our dust, 

So near is God to man, 

When Duty whispers low. Thou must, 

The youth replies, / can. 



IV. 

0, WELL for the fortunate soul 

Which Music's wings infold, 

Stealing away the memory 

Of sorrows new and old ! 

Yet happier he wliose inward sight. 



86 VOLUNTARIHS. 

Stayed on his subtile thought, 

Shuts his sense on t()3's of time, 

To vacant bosoms brought. 

But best befriended of the God 

He who, in evil times, 

Warned by an inward voice, 

Heeds not the darkness and the dread, 

Biding by his rule and choice, 

Feeling only the fiery thread 

Leading over heroic ground, 

Walled with mortal terror round, 

To the aim which him allures. 

And the sweet heaven his deed secures. 

Stainless soldier on the walls, 
Knowing this, — and knows no more, — 
Whoever fights, whoever falls, 
Justice conquers evermore. 
Justice after as before, — 



VOLUNTARIES. 87 

And he who battles on her side, 
God, though he were ten times slain, 
Crowns him victor glorified, 
Victor over death and pain ; 
Forever : but his erring foe. 
Self-assured that he prevails, 
Looks from his victim lying low, 
And sees aloft the red right arm 
Redress the eternal scales. 
He, the poor foe, whom angels foil, 
Blind with pride, and fooled by hate, 
Writhes within the dragon coil. 
Reserved to a speechless fate. 



Blooms the laurel which belongs 
To the valiant chief who fights ; 
I see the wreath, I hear the songs 



88 VOLUNTARIES. 

Lauding the Eternal Riglits, 

Victors over daily wrongs : 

Awful victors, they misguide 

Whom they will destro}^ 

And their coming triumph hide 

In our downfall, or our joy : 

They reach no term, they never sleep, 

In equal strength through space abide ; 

Though, feigning dwarfs, they crouch and creep, 

The strong they slay, the swift outstride : 

Fate's grass grows rank in valley clods, 

And rankly on the castled steep, — 

Speak it firmly, these are gods, 

All are ghosts beside. 



LOVE AND THOUGHT. 



T 



WO well-assorted travellers use 
The highway, Eros and the Muse. 



From the twins is nothing hidden, 
To the pair is naught forbidden ; 
Hand in hand the comrades go 
Every nook of nature through : 
Each for other they were born, 
Each can other best adorn ; 
They know one only mortal grief 
Past all balsam or relief, 
When, by false companions crossed. 
The pilgrims have each other lost. 



LOVER'S PETITION. 

/^ OOD Heart, that ownest all 1 

I ask a modest boon and small : 
Not of lands and towns the gift, — 
Too large a load for me to lift, — 
But for one proper creature, 
Which geographic eye, 
Sweeping the map of Western earth, 
Or the Atlantic coast, from Maine 
To Powhatan's domain, 
Could not descry. 

Is 't much to ask in all thy huge creation, 
So trivial a part, — 
A solitary heart ? 



- LOVER'S PETITION. 91 

Yet count me not of spirit mean. 
Or mine a mean demand, 
For 'tis the concentration 
And worth of all the land, 
The sister of the sea, 
The daughter of the strand. 
Composed of air and light. 
And of the swart earth-might. 
So little to thy poet's prayer 
Thy large bounty well can spare. 
And yet I think, if she were gone, 
The world were better left alone. 



UNA. 

"DOVING, roving, as it seems, 

Una lights my clouded dreams ; 
Still for journeys she is dressed ; 
We wander far by east and west. 

In the homestead, homely thought ; 
At my work I ramble not ; 
If from home chance draw me wide, 
H^ilf-seen Una sits beside. 

In my house and garden-plot, 
Though beloved, I miss her not ; 
But one I seek in foreign places, 
One face explore in foreign faces. 



UNA. 93 

At home a deeper thought may light 
The inward sky with chrysolite, 
And I greet from far the ray, 
Aurora of a dearer day. 

But if upon the seas 1 sail, 
Or trundle on the glowing rail, 
I am but a thought of hers. 
Loveliest of travellers. 

So the gentle poet's name 
To foreign parts is blown by fame ; 
Seek him in his native town, 
He is hidden and unknown. 



LETTERS. 

XT' VERY day brings a ship, 

Every ship brings a word ; 
Well for those who have no fear, 
Looking seaward well assured 
That the word the vessel brings 
Is the word they wish to hear. 



RUBIES. 



nnHEY brought me rubies from the mine, 

And held them to the sun ; 
I said, they are drops of frozen wine 
From Eden's vats that run. 

I looked again, — I thought them hearts 

Of friends to friends unknown ; 
Tides that should warm each neighboring life 

Are locked in sparkling stone. 

But fire to thaw that ruddy snow, 

To break enchanted ice, 
And give love's scarlet tides to flow, — 

When shall that sun arise ? 



MERLIN'S SONG. 

/^F Merlin wise I learned a song, — 

Sing it low, or sing it loud, 
It is mightier than the strong. 
And punishes the proud. 
I sing it to the surging crowd, — 
Good men it will calm and cheer, 
Bad men it will chain and cage. 
In the heart of the music peals a strain 
Which only angels hear ; 
Whether it waken joy or rage, 
Hushed myriads hark in vain, 
Yet they who hear it shed their age, 
And take their yuuth again. 



THE TEST. 

(Musa loquitur.) 

"f* HUNG my verses in the wind, 

Time and tide their faults may find. 
All were winnowed through and through. 
Five lines lasted sound and true ; 
Five were smelted in a pot 
Than the South more fierce and hot ; 
These the siroc could not melt, 
Fire their fiercer flaming felt, 
And the meaning was more white 
Than July's meridian light. 
Sunshine cannot bleach the snow, 
Nor time unmake what poets know. 
Have you eyes to find the five 
Which five hundred did survive ? 

5 O 



SOLUTION. 

T AM the Muse wno sung alway 

By Jove, at dawn of the first day. 
Star-crowned, sole-sitting*, long I wrought 
To fire the stagnant earth with thought : 
On spawning slime my song prevails, 
Wolves shed their fangs, and dragons scales ; 
Flushed in the sky the sweet May-morn, 
Earth smiled with flowers, and man was born. 
Then Asia yeaned her shepherd race, 
And Nile substructs her granite base, — 
Tented Tartary, columned Nile, — 
And, under vines, on rocky isle, 
Or on wind-blown sea-marge bleak, 
Forward stepped the perfect Greek : 



SOLUTION. 99 

That wit and joy might find a tongue, 
And earth grow civil, Homer sung. 

Flown to Italy from Greece, 
I brooded long, and held my peace, 
For I am wont to sing uncalled, 
And in days of evil plight 
Unlock doors of new delight ; 
And sometimes mankind I appalled 
With a bitter horoscope, 
With spasms of terror for balm of hope. 
Then by better thought I lead 
Bards to speak what nations need ; 

So I folded me in fears, 

And Dante searched the triple spheres. 

Moulding nature at his will, 

So shaped, so colored, swift or still, 

And, sculptor-like, his large design 

Etched on Alp and Apennine. 



100 SOLUTION. 

Seethed in mists of Penmanmaur, 
Taught by Plinlimmon's Draid power, 
England's genius filled all measure 
Of heart and soul, of strength and pleasure, 
Gave to the mind its emperor, 
And life was larger than before : 
Nor sequent centuries could hit 
Orbit and sum of Shakspeare's wit. 
The men who lived with him became 
Poets, for the air was fame. 

Far in the North, whore polar night 
Holds in check the frolic light, 
In trance upborne past mortal goal 
The Swede Emanuel leads the soul. 
Through snows above, mines underground. 
The inks of Erebus he found ; 
Rehearsed to men the damned wails 
On which the seraph music sails. 



SOLUTION. 101 

111 spirit-worlds he trod alone, 

But walked the earth unmarked, unknown. 

The near by-stander caught no sound, — 

Yet they who listened far aloof 

Heard rendings of the skyey roof, 

And felt, beneath, the quaking ground ; 

And his air-sown, unheeded words. 

In the next age, are flaming swords. 

In newer days of war and trade, 
Romance forgot, and faith decayed. 
When Science armed and guided war, 
And clerks the Janus-gates unbar, 
When France, where poet never grew. 
Halved and dealt the globe anew, 
Goethe, raised o'er joy and strife, 
Drew the firm lines of Fate and Life, 
And brought Olympian wisdom down 
To court and mart, to gown and town ; 



1<^2 SOLUTIOxN. 

Stooping, his finger wrote in clay 
The open secret of to-day. 

So bloom the unfading petals five, 
And verses that all verse outlive. 



NATURE AND LIFE. 



NATURE. 



I. 



TTTINTERS know 

Easily to shed the snow, 
And the untaught Spring is wise 
In cowslips and anemonies. 
Nature, hating art and pains, 
Baulks and baffles plotting brains ; 
Casualty and Surprise 
Are the apples of her eyes ; 
But she dearly loves the poor, 
And, by marvel of her own. 
Strikes the loud pretender down. 
For Nature listens in the rose, 
And hearkens in the berry's bell, 
To help her friends, to plague her foes, 
5* 



1U6 NATUIiE. 

And like wise God she judges well. 

Yet doth much her love excel 

To the souls that never fell, 

To swains that live in happiness, 

And do well because they please. 

Who walk in ways that are unfamed. 

And feats achieve before they 're named. 



NATURE 



II. 



OHE is gamesome and good, 

But of mutable mood, — 
No dreary repeater now and again, 
She will be all things to all men. 
She who is old, but nowise feeble, 
Pours her power into the people, 
Merry and manifold without bar. 
Makes and moulds them what they are. 
And what they call their city way 
Is not their way, but hers, 
And what they say they made to-day, 
They learned of the oaks and firs. 
She spawneth men as mallows fresh. 



108 NATURE. 

Hero and maiden, flesh of her flesh ; 

She drugs her water and her wheat 

With the flavors she finds meet, 

And gives them what to drink and eat ; 

And having thus their bread and growth, 

They do her bidding, nothing loath. 

What ^s most theirs is not their own, 

But borrowed in atoms from iron and stone, 

And in their vaunted works of Art 

The master-stroke is still her part. 



THE ROMANY GIRL. 

fTlHE sun goes down, and with him takes 

The coarseness of my poor attire ; 
The fair moon mounts, and aye the flame 
Of Gypsy beauty blazes higher. 

Pale Northern girls ! you scorn our race ; 
You captives of your air-tight halls. 
Wear out in-doors your sickly days, 
But leave us the horizon walls. 

And if I take you, dames, to task. 
And say it frankly without guile, 
Then you are Gypsies in a mask, 
And I the lady all the while. 



110 JHK ROMANY GIRL. 

If, on the heath, below the moon, 
I court and play with paler blood, 
Me false to mine dare whisper none, — 
One sallow horseman knows me good. 

Go, keep your cheek's rose from the rain, 
For teeth and hair with shopmen deal ; 
My swarthy tint is in the grain, 
The rocks and forest know it real. 

The wild air bloweth in our lungs, 
The keen stars twinkle in our eyes, 
The birds gave us our wily tongues, 
The panther in our dances flies. 

You doubt we read the stars on high, 
Nathless we read your fortunes true ; 
The stars may hide in the upper sky, 
But without glass we fathom you. 



D 



DAYS. 

AUGHTER of Time, the hypocritic Days, 
Muffled and dumb like barefoot dervishes, 
And marching single in an endless file, 
Bring diadems and fagots in their hands. 
To each they offer gifts after his will, 
Bread, kingdoms, stars, and sky that holds them all 
I, in my pleached garden, watched the pomp, 
Forgot my morning wishes, hastily 
Took a few herbs and apples, and the Day 
Turned and departed silent. I, too late, 
Under her solemn fillet saw the scorn. 



THE CHARTIST'S COMPLAINT, 

T^AY! hast thou two faces, 

Making one place two places ? 
One, by humble farmer seen, 
Chill and wet, unlighted, mean, 
Useful only, triste and damp, 
Serving for a laborer's lamp ? 
Have the same mists another side. 
To be the appanage of pride, 
Gracing the rich man's wood and lake, 
His park where amber mornings break, 
And treacherously bright to show 
His planted isle where roses glow ? 
Day ! and is your mightiness 



THE CHARTIST'S COMPLAINT. 113 

A sycophant to smug success ? 
Will the sweet sky and ocean broad 
Be fine accomplices to fraud? 
Sun I I curse thy cruel ray : 
Back, back to chaos, harlot Day! 



MY GARDEN. 

'1 F 1 could put my woods in song. 

And tell what 's there enjoyed, 
All men would to my gardens throng. 
And leave the cities void. 

In my plot no tulips blow, — 
Snow-loving pines and oaks instead ; 
And rank the savage maples grow 
From spring's faint flush to autumn red. 

My garden is a forest ledge 

Which older forests bound; 

The banks slope down to the blue lake-edge, 

Then plunge to depths profound. 



MY GARDEN. 115 

Here once the Deluge ploughed, 
Laid the terraces, one by one ; 
Ebbing later whence it flowed, 
They bleach and dry in the sun. 

The sowers made haste to depart, — 
The wind and the birds which sowed it ; 
Not for fame, nor by rules of art, 
Planted these, and tempests flowed it. 

Waters that wash my garden side 
Play not in Nature's lawful web. 
They heed not moon or solar tide, — 
Five years elapse from flood to ebb. 

Hither hasted, in old time, Jove, 
And every god, — none did refuse ; 
And be sure at last came Love, 
And after Love, the Muse 



^^ MY GARDEN. 

Keen ears can catch a syllable, 

As if one spake to another, 

In the hemlocks tall, untamable, 

And what the whispering grasses smother. 

-Eolian harps in the pine 

Ring with the song of the Fates ; 

Infant Bacchus in the vine, 

Far distant yet his chorus waits. 

Canst thou copy in verse one chime 
Of the wood-belFs peal and cry. 
Write in a book the morning's prime, 
Or match with words that tender sky ? 

Wonderful verse of the gods. 
Of one import, of varied tone ; 
They chant the bliss of their abodes 
To man imprisoned in his own. 



MY GARDEN. 117 

Ever the words of the gods resound ; 
But the porches of man's ear 
Seldom in this low life's round 
Are unsealed, that he may hear. 

Wandering voices in the air, 
And murmurs in the wold, 
Speak what I cannot declare. 
Yet cannot all withhold. 

When the shadow fell on the lake, 
The whirlwind in ripples wrote 
Air-bells of fortune that shine and break, 
And omens above thought. 

But the meanings cleave to the lake. 
Cannot be carried in book or urn ; 
Go thy ways now, come later back, 
On waves and hedges still they burn. 



118 



MY GARDEN. 



These the fates of men forecast, 
Of better men than live to-day ; 
If who can read them comes at last 
He will spell in the sculpture, ' Stay 



THE TITMOUSE. 

^VrOU shall not be overbold 

When you deal with arctic cold, 
As late I found my lukewarm blood 
Chilled wading' in the snow-choked wood. 
How should I light ? ray foeman fine 
Has million arms to one of mine : 
East, west, for aid I looked in vain. 
East, west, north, south, are his domain. 
Miles off, three dangerous miles, is home ; 
Must borrow his winds who there would come 
Up aad away for life ! be fleet ! — 
The frost-king ties my fumbling feet, 
Sings in my ears, my hands are stones, 
Curdles the blood to the marble bones. 



120 THE TITMOUSE. 

Tugs at the heart-strings, numbs the sense, 

And hems in life with narrowing fence. 

Well, in this broad bed lie and sleep, 

The punctual stars will vigil keep. 

Embalmed by purifying cold, 

The winds shall sing their dead-march old. 

The snow is no ignoble shroud, 

The moon thy mourner, and the cloud. 

Softly, — but this way fate was pointing, 
'T was coming fast to such anointing. 
When piped a tiny voice hard by. 
Gay and polite, a cheerful cry, 
Ghic-chicadeedee ! saucy note 
Out of sound heart and merry throat. 
As if it said, ' Good day, good sir ! 
Fine afternoon, old passenger I 
Happy to meet you in these places. 
Where January brings few faces.' 



THE TITMOUSE. 121 

This poet, though he live apart, 
Moved by his hospitable heart, 
Sped, when I passed his sylvan fort, 
To do the honors of his court, 
As fits a feathered lord of land ; 
Flew near, with soft wing grazed my hand, 
Hopped on the bougli, then, darting low. 
Prints his small impress on the snow, 
Shows feats of his gymnastic play, 
Head downward, clinging to the spray. 

Here was this atom in full breath, 
Hurling defiance at vast death ; 
This scrap of valor just for play 
Fronts the north-wind in waistcoat gray, 
As if to shame my weak behavior ; 
I greeted loud my little saviour, 
' You pet ! what dost here ? and what for ? 
In these woods, thy small Labrador, 
6 



122 THE TITMOUSK. 

At this pinch, wee San Salvador ! 

What fire burns in that little chest 

So frolic, stout, and self-possest ? 

Henceforth I wear no stripe but thine ; 

Ashes and jet all hues outshine. 

Why are not diamonds black and gray, 

To ape thy dare-devil array ? 

And I affirm, the spacious North 

Exists to draw thy virtue forth. 

I think no virtue goes with size ; 

The reason of all cowardice 

Is, that men are overgrown, 

And, to be valiant, must come down 

To the titmouse dimension/ 

'Tis good-will makes intelligence, 
And I began to catch the sense 
Of my bird's song : * Live out of doors 
In the great woods, on prairie floors. 



THE TITMOUSE. 123 

I (line in the sun ; when he sinks in the sea, 

I too have a hole in a hollow tree ; 

And I like less when Summer beats 

With stifling beams on these retreats, 

Than noontide twilights which snow makes 

With tempest of the blinding flakes. 

For well the soul, if stout within. 

Can arm impregnably the skin ; 

And polar frost my frame defied. 

Made of the air that blows outside.' 

With glad remembrance of my debt, 
I homeward turn ; farewell, my pet ! 
When here again thy pilgrim comes, 
He shall bring store of seeds and crumbs. 
Doubt not, so long as earth has bread. 
Thou first and foremost shalt be fed ; 
The Providence that is most large 
Takes hearts like thine in special charge, 



124 THE TITMOUSE. 

Helps who for their own need are strong, 

And the sky doats on cheerful song. 

Henceforth I prize thy wiry chant 

O'er all that mass and minster vaunt ; 

For men mis-hear thy call in spring, 

As t' would accost some frivolous wing, 

Crying out of the hazel copse, Fhe-be / 

And, in winter, Ghic-a-dee-dee ! 

I think old Caesar must have heard 

In northern Gaul my dauntless bird, 

And, echoed in some frosty wold, 

Borrowed thy battle-numbers bold. 

And I will write our annals new. 

And thank thee for a better clew, 

I, who dreamed not when I came here 

To find the antidote of fear. 

Now hear thee say in Roman key, 

Pcean I Veni, vidi, vici. 



SEA-SHORE. 

T HEARD or seemed to hear the chiding Sea 

Say, Pilgrim, why so late and slow to come? 
Am I not always here, thy summer home ? 
Is not my voice thy music, morn and eve ? 
My breath thy healthful climate in the heats, 
My touch thy antidote, my bay thy bath ? 
Was ever building like my terraces ? 
Was ever couch magnificent as mine ? 
Lie on the warm rock-ledges, and there learn 
A little hut suffices like a town. 
I make 3"our sculptured architecture vain, 
Vain beside mine. I drive my wedges home, 
And carve the coastwise mountain into caves. 
Lo ! h(M-e is Rome, and Nineveh, and Thebes, 
Karna'v, and Pyramid, and Giant's Stairs, 



126 SEA-SHORE. 

Half piled or prostrate ; and my newest slab 
Older than all thy race. 

Behold the Sea, 
The opaline, the plentiful and strong, 
Yet beautiful as is the rose in June, 
Fresh as the trickling rainbow of July ; 
Sea full of food, the nourisher of kinds, 
Purger of earth, and medicine of men ; 
Creating a sweet climate by my breath, 
Washing out harms and griefs from memory, 
And, in my mathematic ebb and flow, 
Giving a hint of that which changes not. 
Rich are the sea-gods : — who gives gifts but they? 
They grope the sea for pearls, but more than pearls : 
They pluck Force thence, and give it to the wise. 
For every wave is wealth to Dosdalus, 
Wealth to the cunning artist who can work 
This matchless strength. Where shall he find, 

waves ! 
A. load your Atlas shoulders cannot lift ? 



SEA-SHORE. 127 

I with my hammer pounding evermore 
The rocky coast, smite Andes into dust, 
Strewing my bed, and, in another age, 
Rebuild a continent of better men. 
Then I unbar the doors : my paths lead out 
The exodus of nations : I disperse 
Men to all shores that front the hoary main. 

I too have arts and sorceries ; 
Illusion dwells forever with the wave. 
I know what spells are laid. Leave me to deal 
With credulous and imaginative man ; 
For, though he scoop my water in his palm, 
A few rods off he deems it gems and clouds. 
Planting strange fruits and sunshine on the shore, 
I make some coast alluring, some lone isle, 
To distant men, who must go there, or die. 



SONG OF NATURE. 

li/riNE are the night and morning, 

The pits of air, the gulf of space, 
The sportive sun, the gibbous moon, 
The innumerable days. 

I hide in the solar glory, 
I am dumb in the pealing song, 
I rest on the pitch of the torrent. 
In slumber I am strong. 

No numbers have counted my tallies, 
No tribes my house can fill, 
1 sit by the shining Fount of Life, 
And pour the deluge still ; 



SONG OF NATURE. 129 

And ever by delicate powers 
Gathering along the centuries 
From race on race the rarest flowers, 
My wreath shall nothing miss. 

And many a thousand summers 
My apples ripened well, 
And light from meliorating stars 
With firmer glory fell 

I wrote the past in characters 
Of rock and fire the scroll, 
The building in the coral sea, 
The planting of the coal. 

And thefts from satellites and rings 
And broken stars I drew, 
And out of spent and ;ig(^l things 
I formed the world anew ; 

6* 1 



130 SONG OF NATURE. 

What time the gods kept carnival, 
Tricked out in star and flower, 
And in cramp elf and saurian forms 
They swathed their too much power. 

Time and Thought were my surveyors, 
They laid their courses well, 
They boiled the sea, and baked the layers 
Of granite, marl, and shell. 

But he, the man-child glorious, — 
Where tarries he the while ? 
The rainbow shines his harbinger. 
The sunset gleams his smile. 

My boreal lights leap upward, 
Forthright my planets roll. 
And still the man-child is not born, 
The summit of the whole. 



SONG OF naturp:. 131 

Must time and tide forever run ? 
Will never my winds go sleep in the west ? 
Will never my wheels which whirl the sun 
And satellites have rest ? 

Too much of donning and doffing, 
Too slow the rainbow fades, 
I weary of my robe of snow, 
My leaves and my cascades ; 

I tire of globes and races. 
Too long the game is played ; 
What without him is summer's pomp. 
Or winter's frozen shade ? 

I travail in pain for him. 
My creatures travail and wait ; 
Ilis couriers come by squadrons, 
He comes not to the gate. 



132 SONG OK NATURE. 

Twice I have moulded an image, 
And thrice outstretched my hand, 
Made one of day, and one of night, 
And one of the salt sea-sand. 

One in a Jud^ean manger, 

And one by Avon stream, 

One over against the mouths of Nile, 

And one in the Academe. 

I moulded kings and saviours, 
And bards o'er kings to rule ; — 
But fell the starry influence short, 
The cup was never full. 

Yet whirl the glowing wheels once more, 

And mix the bowl again ; 

Seethe, Fate ! the ancient elements, 

Heat, cold, wet, dry, and peace, and pain. 



SONG OF NATTRE. 133 

Let war and trade and creeds and song 
Blend, ripen race on race, 
The sunburnt world a man shall breed 
Of all the zones, and countless days. 

No ray is dimmed, no atom worn. 
My oldest force is good as new, 
And the fresh rose on yonder thorn 
Gives back the bending heavens in dew. 



TWO RIVERS. 

nnilY summer voice, Musketaquit, 
Repeats the music of the rain ; 
But sweeter rivers pulsing flit 
Through thee, as thou through Concord Plain. 

Thou in thy narrow banks art pent : 
The stream I love unbounded goes 
Through flood and sea and firmament ; 
Through light, through life, it forward flows. 

I see the inundation sweet, 
I hear the spending of the stream 
Through years, through men, tlirough nature fleet, 
Tlirougli passion, thought, through i)()wc'r and 
drcuni. 



TWO RIVERS. 135 

Musketaquit, a goblin strong, 
Of shard and flint makes jewels gay ; 
They lose their grief who hear his song, 
And where he winds is the day of day. 

So forth and brighter fares ray stream, — 
Who drink it shall not thirst again ; 
No darkness stains its equal gleam, 
And ages drop in it like rain 



WALDEINSAMKEIT. 

T DO not count the hours I spend 

In wandering by the sea ; 
The forest is my loyal friend, 
Like God it useth me. 

In plains that room for shadows make 
Of skirting hills to lie, 
Bound in by streams which give and take 
Their colors from the sky ; 

Or on the mountain-crest sublime, 
Or down the oaken glade, 
what have I to do with time ? 
For this tlie day was made. 



WALDEINSAMKEIT. 137 

Cities of mortals woe-begone 
Fantastic care derides, 
But in the serious landscape lone 
Stern benefit abides. 

Sheen will tarnish, honey cloy, 
And merry is only a mask of wad, 
But, sober on a fund of joy, 
The woods at heart are glad. 

There the great Planter plants 
Of fruitful worlds the grain, 
And with a million spells enchants 
The souls that walk in pain. 

Still on the seeds of all he made 

The rose of beauty burns ; 

Through times that wear, and forms that fade, 

Immortal youth returns. 



138 WALDKIXSAMKKir. 

The black ducks mounting from the lake, 
The pigeon in the pines, 
The bittern's boom, a desert make 
Which no false art refines. 

Down in yon watery nook, 

Where bearded mists divide. 

The gray old gods whom Chaos knew, 

The sires of Nature, hide. 

Aloft, in secret veins of air, 
Blows the sweet breath of song, 
0, few to scale those uplands dare, 
Though they to all belong ! 

See thou bring not to field or stone 
The fancies found in books ; 
Leave authors' eyes, and fetch your own, 
To brave the landscape's looks. 



WALDKTNSAMKEIT. 139 



And if, amid this dear delight, 
My thoughts did home rebound, 
I well might reckon it a slight 
To the high cheer I found. 

Oblivion here thy wisdom is. 
Thy thrift, the sleep of cares ; 
For a proud idleness like this 
Crowns all thy mean affairs. 



TERMINUS. 

TT is time to be old, 
To take in sail : — 

The god of bouuds, 

Who sets to seas a shore. 

Came to me in his fatal rounds, 

And said : ' No more ! 

No farther spread 

Thy broad ambitious branches, and thy root. 

Fancy departs : no more invent, 

Contract thy firmament 

To compass of a tent. 

There 's not enough for this and that, 

Make thy option which of two ; 



TERxMINUS. 141 

Economize the failing river, 

Not the less revere the Giver, 

Leave the many and hold the few. 

Timely wise accept the terms. 

Soften the fall with wary foot ; 

A little while 

Still plan and smile, 

And, fault of novel germs. 

Mature the unfallen fruit. 

Curse, if thou wilt, thy sires. 

Bad husbands of their fires. 

Who, when they gave thee breath, 

Failed to bequeath 

The needful sinew stark as once. 

The Baresark marrow to thy bones, 

But left a legacy of ebbing veins. 

Inconstant heat and nerveless reins, — 

Amid the Muses, left thee deaf and dumb, 

Amid the gladiators, halt and numb.' 



142 TERMINUS. 

As the bird trims her to the gale, 

I trim myself to the storm of time, 

I man the rudder, reef the sail, 

Obey the voice at eve obeyed at prime : 

'Lowly faithful, banish fear. 

Right onward drive unharmed ; 

The port, well worth the cruise, is near, 

And every wave is charmed/ 



THE PAST, 

rpHE debt is paid, 

The verdict said, 
The Furies laid, 
The plague is stayed. 
All fortunes made ; 
Turn the kay and bolt the door, 
Sweet is death forevermore. 
Nor haughty hope, nor swart chagrin, 
Nor murdering hate, can enter in. 
All is now secure and fast ; 
Not the gods can shake the Past ; 
Flies-to the adamantine door 
Bolted down forevermore. 



144 THE PAST. 

None can re-enter there, — 

No thief so politic, 

No Satan with a royal trick 

Steal in by window, chink, or hole, 

To bind or unbind, add what lacked, 

Insert a leaf, or forge a name, 

New-face or finish what is packed. 

Alter or mend eternal Fact. 



THE LAST FAREWELL. 

LINES WRITTEN BY THE AUTHOR'S BROTHER, EDWARD BLISS 
EMERSON, WHILST SAILING OUT OF BOSTON HARBOR, BOUND 
FOR THE ISLAND OF PORTO RICO, IN 1 832. 

TnAREWELL, ye lofty spires 

That cheered the holy light ! 
Farewell, domestic fires 
That broke the gloom of night I 
Too soon those spires are lost, 
Too fast we leave the bay, 
Too soon by ocean tost 
From hearth and home away. 

Far away, far away. 

Farewell the busy town, 
The wealthy and the wise, 

7 J 



146 THK LAST KARKWKLL. 

Kind smile and honest frown 
From bright, familiar eyes. 
All these are fading now ; 
Our brig hastes on her way, 
Her unremembering prow 
Is leaping o'er the sea. 

Far away, far away. 

Farewell, my mother fond, 
Too kind, too good to me ; 
Nor pearl nor diamond 
Would pay my debt to thee. 
But even thy kiss denies 
Upon my cheek to stay ; 
The winged vessel flies, 
And billows round her play. 

Far away, far away. 

Farewell, my brothers true, 
My betters, yet my peers ; 



THE LAST FAREWELL. 147 

How desert without you 
My few and evil years I 
But though aye one in heart, 
Together sad or gay, 
Kude ocean doth us part ; 
We separate to-day, 

Far away, far away. 

Farewell I breathe again 

To dim New England's shore ; 

My heart shall beat not when 

I pant for thee no more. 

In yon green palmy isle. 

Beneath the tropic ray, 

I murmur never while 

For thee and thine I pray ; 

Far away, far away. 



IN MEMORIAM. 

E. B. E. 

T MOURN upon this battle-field, 

But not for those who perished here. 
Behold the river-bank 
Whither the angry farmers came, 
In sloven dress and broken rank, 
Nor thought of fame. 
Their deed of blood 
All mankind praise ; 
Even the serene Reason says, 
It was well done. 

The wise and simple have one glance 
To greet yon stern head-stone, 



IX M KM OR I AM. It9 

\yhicb more of pride than pity gave 

To mark tlie Briton's friendless grave. 

Yet it is a stately tomb ; 

The grand return 

Of eve and morn, 

The year's fresh bloom, 

The silver cloud, 

Might grace the dust that is most proud. 

Yet not of these I muse 
In this ancestral place, 
But of a kindred face 
That never joy or hope shall here diffuse. 

Ah, brother of the brief but blazing star I 
What hast thou to do with these 
Haunting this bank's historic trees? 
Thou born for noblest life, 
For action's field, for victor's car. 



150 IN MEMORIAM. 

Thou living champion of the right ? 
To these their penalty belonged : 
I grudge not these their bed of death, 
But thine to thee, who never wronged 
The poorest that drew breath. 

All inborn power that could 
Consist with homage to the good 
Flamed from his martial eye ; 
He who seemed a soldier born, 
He should have the helmet worn, 
All friends to fend, all foes defy, 
Fronting foes of God and man, 
Frowning down the evil-doer, 
Battling for the weak and poor. 
His from youth the leader's look 
Gave the law which others took, 
And never poor beseeching glance 
Shamed that sculptured countenance. 



IN MEMORIAM. 151 

There is no record left on earth. 
Save in tablets of the heart, 
Of the rich inherent worth, 
Of the grace that on him shone, 
Of eloquent lips, of joyful wit ; 
He could not frame a word unfit, 
An act unworthy to be done ; 
Honor prompted every glance, 
Honor came and sat beside him. 
In lowly cot or painful road, 
And evermore the cruel god 
Cried, "Onward!" and the palm-crown showed. 
Born for success he seemed, 
With grace to win, with heart to hold. 
With shining gifts that took all eyes, 
With budding power in college-halls, 
As pledged in coming days to forge 
Weapons to guard the State, or scourge 
Tyrants despite their guards or walls. 



152 IN MEMORIAM. 

On his young promise Beauty smiled, 
Drew his free homage unbeguiled, 
And prosperous Age held out liis hand. 
And richly his large future planned, 
And troops of friends enjoyed the tide, — 
All, all was given, and only health denied. 

I see him with superior smile 

Hunted by Sorrow's grisly train 

In lands remote, in toil and pain. 

With angel patience labor on. 

With the high port he wore erewhile. 

When, foremost of the youthful band. 

The prizes in all lists he won ; 

Nor bate one jot of heart or hope. 

And, least of all, the loyal tie 

Which holds to home 'neath every sky, 

The joy and pride the pilgrim feels 

In hearts which round the hoartli at home 

Keep pulse for pulse with those who roam. 



IN .MKMOniAM. 153 

What generous beliefs console 
The brave whom Fate denies the goal ! 
If others reach it, is content ; 
To Heaven's high will his will is bent. 
Firm on his heart relied, 
What lot soe'er betide, 
Work of his hand 
He nor repents nor grieves, 
Pleads for itself the fact. 
As unrepenting Nature leaves 
Her every act. 

Fell the bolt on the branching oak ; 
The rainbow of his hope was broke ; 
No craven cry, no secret tear, — 
He told no pang, he knew no fear ; 
Its peace sublime his aspect kept, 
His purpose woke, his features slept ; 
And yet between the spasms of pain 
His genius beamed with joy again. 



154 IN MKMOKIAM. 

O'er thy rich dust the endless smile 
Of Nature in thy Spanish isle 
Hints never loss or cruel break 
And sacrifice for love's dear sake, 
Nor mourn the unalterable Days 
That Genius goes and Folly stays. 
What matters how, or from v^hat ground, 
'The freed soul its Creator found? 
Alike thy memory embalms 
That orange-grove, that isle of palms, 
And these loved banks, whose oak-boughs bold 
Root in the blood of heroes old. 



ELEMENTS 



EXPERIENCE. 

rpHE lords of life, the lords of life, - 
I saw them pass, 

In their own guise, 

Like and unlike, 

Portly and grim, — 

Use and Surprise, 
Surface and Dream, 
Succession swift and spectral Wrong, 
Temperament without a tongue, 
And the inventor of the game 
Omnipresent without name ; — 
Some to see, some to be guessed, 
They marched from east to west : 



158 EXPERIENCE. 

Little man, least of all, 
Among the legs of his guardians tall, 
Walked about with puzzled look. 
Him by the hand dear Nature took. 
Dearest Nature, strong and kind. 
Whispered, ' Darling, never mind ! 
To-morrow they will wear another face, 
The founder thou ; these are thy race ! ' 



COMPENSATION 



nnHE wings of Time are black and white, 

Pied with morning and with night. 
Mountain tall and ocean deep 
Trembling balance duly keep. 
In changing moon and tidal wave 
Glows the feud of Want and Have. 
Gauge of more and less through space, 
Electric star or pencil plays, 
The lonely Earth amid the balls 
That hurry through the eternal halls, 
A makeweight flying to the void, 
Supplemental asteroid, 



IfiO COMPKNSATION. 

Or componsatory spark, 
Shoots across the neutral Dark. 



Man 's the elm, and Wealth the vine : 
Stanch and strong the tendrils twine : 
Tboup^h the frail ringlets thee deceive, 
None from its stock that vine can reave. 
Fear not, then, thou child infirm, 
There 's no god dare wrong a worm ; 
Laurel crowns cleave to deserts, 
And power to him who power exerts. 
Hast not thy share ? On winged feet, 
Lo I it rushes thee to meet ; 
And all that Nature made thy own, 
Floating in air or pent in stone. 
Will rive the hills and swim the sea. 
And, like thy shadow, follow thee. 



POLITICS. 

GOLD and iron are good 
To buy iron and gold ; 
All earth's fleece and food 
For their like are sold. 
Hinted Merlin wise, 
Proved Napoleon great, 

Nor kind nor coinage buys 

Aught above its rate. 

Fear, Craft, and Avarice 

Cannot rear a State. 

Out of dust to build 

What is more than dust, — 

Walls Amphion piled 



162 POLITICS. 

Phoebus stablish must. 

When the Muses nine 

"With the Virtues meet, 

Find to their design 

An Atlantic seat, 

By green orchard boughs 

Fended from the heat, 

Where the statesman ploughs 

Furrow for the wheat, — 

When the Church is social worth, 

When the state-house is the hearth, 

Then the perfect State is come, 

The republican at home. 



HEROISM. 

TJ^BY wine is drunk by knaves, 
Sugar spends to fatten slaves, 
Rose and vine-leaf deck buffoons ; 
Thunder-clouds are Jove's festoons, 
Drooping oft in wreaths of dread, 
Lightning-knotted round his head ; 
The hero is not fed on sweets. 
Daily his own heart he eats ; 
Chambers of the great are jails, 
And head-winds right for royal sails. 



CHARACTER. 

rpHE sun set, but set not his hope : 

Stars rose ; his faith was earlier up : 
Fixed on the enormous galaxy, 
Deeper and older seemed his eye ; 
And matched his sufferance sublime 
The taciturnity of time 
lie spoke, and words more soft than rain 
Brought the Age of Gold again : 
His action won such reverence sweet 
As hid all measure of the feat. 



CULTURE. 

/^AN rules or tutors educate 

The semigod whom we await ? 
He must be musical, 
Tremulous, impressional, 
Alive to gentle influence 
Of landscape and of sky. 
And tender to the spirit-touch 
Of man's or maiden's eye : 
But, to his native centre fast. 
Shall into Future fuse the Past, 
And the world's flowing fates in his own mould 
recast. 



FRIENDSHIP. 

A RUDDY drop of manly blood 
The surging sea outweighs, 
The world uncertain comes and goes, 
The lover rooted stays. 
I fancied he was fled, — 
And, after many a year, 
Glowed unexhausted kindliness. 
Like daily sunrise there. 
My careful heart was free again, 
friend, my bosom said, 
Through thee alone the sky is arched. 
Through thee the rose is red ; 
All things through thee take nobler form, 
And look beyond the earth. 



KlliKNDSHli'. 167 



The mill-round of our fate appears 

A sun-path in thy worth. 

Me too thy nobleness has taught 

To master my despair ; 

The fountains of my hidden life 

Are through thy friendship fair. 



BEAUTY. 

TTTAS never form and never face 

So sweet to Seyd as only grace 
Which did not slumber like a stone, 
But hovered gleaming and was gone. 
Beauty chased he everywhere, 
In flame, in storm, in clouds of air. 
He smote the lake to feed his eye 
With the beryl beam of the broken wave; 
He flung in pebbles well to hear 
The moment's music which they gave. 
Oft pealed for him a lofty tone 
From nodding pole and belting zone. 
He heard a voice none else could hear 
From centred and from errant sphere. 



BEAUTY. 169 

The quaking earth did quake in rhyme. 
Seas ebbed and flowed in epic chime. 
Id dens of passion, and pits of woe, 
He saw strong Eros struggling through, 
To sun the dark and solve the curse, 
And beam to the bounds of the universe. 
While thus to love he gave his days 
In loyal worship, scorning praise, 
How spread their lures for him in vain 
Thieving Ambition and paltering Gain! 
He thought it happier to be dead, 
To die for Beauty, than live for bread. 



MANNERS. 

/^ RACE, Beauty, and Caprice 

Build this golden portal ; 
Graceful women, chosen men, 
Dazzle every mortal. 
Their sweet and lofty countenance 
His enchanted food ; 
He need not go to them, their forms 
Beset his solitude. 
He looketh seldom in their face, 
His eyes explore the ground, — 
The green grass is a looking-glass 
Whereon their traits are found. 
Little and less he says to them. 
So dances his heart in his breast ; 



MANNERS. 171 

Their tranquil mien bereaveth him 

Of wit, of words, of rest. 

Too weak to win, too fond to shun 

The tyrants of his doom, 

The much deceived Endymion 

Slips behind a tomb. 



ART. 

/^ IVE to barrows, trays, and pans 
Grace and glimmer of romance ; 
Bring the moonlight into noon 
Hid in gleaming piles of stone ; 
On the city's paved street 
Plant gardens lined with lilacs sweet ; 
Let spouting fountains cool the air, 
Singing in the sun-baked square ; 
Let statue, picture, park, and hall, 
Ballad, flag, and festival. 
The past restore, the day adorn. 
And make to-morrow a new morn. 
So shall the drudge in dusty frock 
Spy behind the city clock 



ART. 173 

Retinues of airy kings, 

Skirts of angels, starry wings, 

His fathers shining in bright fables, 

His children fed at heavenly tables. 

'T is the privilege of Art 

Thus to play its cheerful part, 

Man on earth to acclimate. 

And bend the exile to his fate. 

And, moulded of one element 

With the days and firmament, 

Teach him on these as stairs to climb, 

And live on even terras with Time ; 

Whilst upper life the slender rill 

Of human sense doth overfill. 



SPIRITUAL LAWS. 

rpnE living Heaven thy prayers respect, 

House at once and architect, 
Quarrying man's rejected hours, 
Builds therewith eternal towers ; 
Sole and self-commanded works, 
Fears not undermining days. 
Grows by decays, 

And, by the famous might that lurks 
tn reaction and recoil, 
Makes flame to freeze, and ice to boil ; 
Forging, through swart arms of Offence, 
The silver seat of Innocence. 



UNITY. 

CIPACE is ample, east and west, 

But two cannot go abreast, 
Cannot travel in it two : 
Yonder masterful cuckoo 
Crowds every egg out of the nest, 
Quick or dead, except its own ; 
A spell is laid on sod and stone. 
Night and Day were tampered with, 
Every quality and pith 
Surcharged and sultry with a power 
That works its will on age and hour. 



WORSHIP. 

rriHIS is he, who, felled by foes, 

Sprung harmless up, refreshed by blows 
He to captivity was sold, 
But him DO prison-bars would hold : 
Though they sealed him in a rock. 
Mountain chains he can unlock : 
Thrown to lions for their meat. 
The crouching lion kissed his feet : 
Bound to the stake, no flames appalled. 
But arched o'er him an honoring vault. 
This is he men miscall Fate, 
Threading dark ways, arriving late. 
But ever coming in time to crown 
The truth, and hurl wrong-doers down. 



WORSHIP. 177 

He is the oldest, and best known, 

More near than aught thou call'st thy own, 

Yet, greeted in another's eyes, 

Disconcerts with glad surprise. 

This is Jove, who, deaf to prayers, 

Floods with blessings unawares. 

Draw, if thou canst, the mystic line 

Severing rightly his from thine, 

Which is human, which divine. 



8* 



QUATRAINS 



QUATRAINS 



S. H. 



XTTITH beams December planets dart 

nis cold eye truth and conduct scanned, 
July was in his sunny heart, 
October in his liberal hand. 



A. H. 

High was her heart, and yet was well inclined, 

Her manners made of bounty well refined ; 

Far capitals, and marble courts, her eye still 

seemed to see, 
Minstrels, and kings, and high-born dames, and 

of the best that be. 



182 QUATRAINS. 



"SUUM CUIQUE." 

Wilt thou seal up the avenues of ill ? 
Pay every debt, as if God wrote the bill. 



HUSH! 

Every thought is public, 
Every nook is wide ; 
Thy gossips spread each whisper. 
And the gods from side to side. 



ORATOR. 

He who has no hands 
Perforce must use his tongue ; 
Foxes are so cunning 
Because they are not strong. 



QUATRAINS. 183 



ARTIST. 



Quit the hut, frequent the palace, 

Reck not what the people say ; 

For still, where'er the trees grow biggest, 

Huntsmen find the easiest way. 



POET. 

Ever the Poet /rom the land 
Steers his bark, and trims his sail ; 
Right out to sea his courses stand, 
New worlds to find in pinnace frail. 

POET. 

To clothe the fiery thought 
In simple words succeeds, 
For still the craft of genius is 
To mask a king in weeds. 



184 QUATRAINS. 

BOTANIST. 

Go thou to thy learned task, 
I stay with the flowers of spring : 
Do thou of the ages ask 
What me the hours will bring. 

GARDENER. 

True Bramin, in the morning meadows wet, 
Expound the Vedas of the violet, 
Or, hid in vines, peeping through many a loop, 
See the plum redden, and the beurr(5 stoop. 

FORESTER. 

He took the color of his vest 
From rabbit's coat or grouse's breast ; 
For, as tlie wood-kinds lurk and liide, 
So walks the woodman, unespiod 



QUATRAINS. 1^^ 



NORTHMAN. 

The gale that wrecked you on the sand, 
It helped my rowers to row ; 
The storm is my best galley hand, 
And drives me where I go. 

FROM ALCUIN. 

The sea is the road of the bold, 
Frontier of the wheat-sown plains, 
The pit wherein the streams are rolled. 
And fountain of the rains. 

EXCELSIOR. 

Over his head were the maple buds. 
And over the tree was the moon, 
And over the moon were the starry studft; 
That drop from the angels' shoon. 



186 QUATRAINS 

BORROWING. 

FROM THE FRENCH. 

Some of your hurts you have curod, 
And the sharpest you still have survived, 
But what torments of grief you endurec? 
From evils which never arrived I 

NATURE. 

Boon Nature yields each day a brag which we 

now first behold, 
And trains us on to slight the new, as if it were 

the old : 
But blest is he, who, playing deep, yet haply 

asks not why, 
Too busied with the crowded hour to fear to live 

or die. 



QUATRAINS. 187 



FATE. 



Her planted eye to-day controls, 
Is in the morrow most at home, 
And sternly calls to being souls 
That curse her when they come. 

HOROSCOPE. 

Ere he was born, the stars of fate 
Plotted to make him rich and great : 
When from the womb the babe was loosed, 
The gate of gifts behind him closed. 

POWER. 

Cast the bantling on the rocks, 
Suckle him with the she-wolfs teat. 
Wintered with the hawk and fox, 
Power and speed be IkukLs and feet 



18« QUATRAINS. 

CLIMACTERIC. 

I AM not wiser for my age, 

Nor skilful by my grief; 

Life loiters at the book's first page,— 

Ah I could we turn the leaf. 

HERI, CRAS, HODIE. 

Shines the last age, the next with hope is seen, 
To-day slinks poorly off unmarked between : 
Future or Past no richer secret folds, 
friendless Present! than thy bosom holds. 

MEMORY. 

Night-dreams trace on Memory^s wall 
Shadows of the thoughts of day, 
And thy fortunes, as they fall, 
The bias of the will betray. 



QUATRAINS. 189 



LOVE. 



Love on his errand bound to go 
Can swim the flood, and wade through snow, 
Where way is none, H will creep and wind 
And eat through Alps its home to find. 

SACRIFICE. 

Though love repine, and reason chafe, 
There came a voice without reply, — 
* 'T is man's perdition to be safe. 
When for the truth he ought to die.' 

PERICLES. 

Well and wisely said the Greek, 
Be thou faithful, but not fond ; 
To the altar's foot thy fellow seek. 
The Furies wait beyond. 



190 QUATRAINS. 

CASELLA. 

Test of the poet is knowledge of love, 
For Eros is older than Saturn or Jove ; 
Never was poet, of late or of yore, 
Who was not tremulous with love-lore. 

SHAKSPEARE. 

I SEE all human wits 
Are measured but a few. 
Unmeasured still my Shakspeare sits. 
Lone as the blessed Jew. 

HAFIZ. 

Her passions the shy violet 
From Hafiz never hides ; 
Love-longings of the raptured bird 
The bird to him confides. 



QUATRAINS. 191 

NATURE IN LEASTS. 

As sings the pine-tree in the wind, 
So sings in tlie wind a sprig of the pine ; 
Her strength and soul has laughing France 
Shed in each drop of wine. 

'AAAKPYN NEMONTAI AIQNA. 

' A NEW commandment/ said the smiling Muse, 
' I give my darling son, Thou shalt not preach' ; — 
Luther, Fox, Behmen, Swedenborg, grew pale. 
And, on the instant, rosier clouds upbore 
Hafiz and Shakspeare with their shining choirs. 



TRANSLATIONS. 

SONNET OF MICHEL ANGELO BUONAROTl. 

"VTEVER did sculptor's dream unfold 

A form which marble doth not hold 
In its white block ; yet it therein shall find 
Only the hand secure and bold 
Which still obeys the mind. 
So hide in thee, thou heavenly dame. 
The ill I shun, the good I claim ; 
I alas! not well alive, 
Miss the aim whereto I strive. 

Not love, nor beauty's pride. 

Nor Fortune, nor thy coldness, can I chide, 

If, whilst within thy heart abide 

Both death and pity, my unequal skill 

Fails of the life, but draws the death and ill 



196 TRANSLATIONS. 

THE EXILE. 

FROM THE PERSIAN OF KERMANI. 

In Farsistan the violet spreads 
Its leaves to the rival sky ; 
I ask how far is the Tigris flood, 
And the vine that grows thereby? 

Except the amber morning wind, 
Not one salutes me here ; 
There is no lover in all Bagdat 
To offer the exile cheer. 

I know that thou, morning wind! 
O^er Kernan^s meadow blowest, 
And thou, heart-warming nightingale ! 
My father's orchard knowest. 

The merchant hath stuffs of price, 
And gems from the sea-washed strand, 



TRANSLATIONS. 197 

And princes offer me grace 
To stay in the Syrian land ; 

But what is gold for, but for gifts ? 
And dark, without love, is the day ; 
And all that I see in Bagdat 
Is the Tigris to float me away. 



FROM HAFIZ. 

I SAID to heaven that glowed above, 
hide yon sun-filled zone, 
Hide all the stars you boast ; 
For, in the world of love 
And estimation true, 
The heaped-up harvest of the moon 
Is worth one barley-corn at most, 
The Pleiads' sheaf but two. 



198 TRANSLATIONS. 



If my darling should depart, 

And search the skies for prouder friends, 

God forbid my angry heart 

In other love should seek amends. 

When the blue horizon's hoop 
Me a little pinches here, 
Instant to my grave I stoop, 
And go find thee in the sphere. 



EPITAPH. 

Bethink, poor heart, what bitter kind of jest 
Mad Destiny this tender stripling played; 
For a warm breast of maiden to his breast, 
She laid a slab of marble on his head. 



TRANSLATIONS. 



199 



They say, through patience, cnalk 
Becomes a ruby stone ; 
Ah, yes ! but by the true heart's blood 
The chalk is crimson grown. 



FRIENDSHIP 



Thou foolish Hafiz ! Say, do churls 
Know the worth of Oman's pearls ? 
Give the gem which dims the moon 
To the noblest, or to none. 



Dearest, where thy shadow falls, 
Beauty sits, and Music calls ; 
Where thy form and favor come, 
All good creatures have their home. 



200 TRANSLATIONS. 



On prince or bride no diamond stone 
Half so gracious ever shone, 
As the light of enterprise 
Beaming from a young man's eyes. 

FROM OMAR CHIAM. 

Each spot where tulips prank their state 
Has drunk the life-blood of the great ; 
The violets yon field which stain 
Are moles of beauties Time hath slain. 



He who has a thousand friends has not a friend 
to spare, 

And he who has one enemy will meet him every- 
where. 



TRANSLATIONS. 201 



On two days it steads not to run from thy grave, 
The appointed, and the unappointed day; 
On the first, neither balm nor physician can save, 
Nor thee, on the second, the Universe slay. 



FROM IBN JEMIN. 

Two things thou shalt not long for, if thou lovo 

a mind serene ; — 
A woman to thy wife, though she were a crowned 

queen ; 
And the second, borrowed money, — though the 

smiling lender say, 
That he will not demand the debt until the Judg. 

ment Day. 

9* 



202 TRANSLATIONS. 

THE FLUTE. 

FROM HILALI. 

Hark what, now loud, now low, the pining 

flute complains. 
Without tongue, yellow-cheeked, full of winds 

that wail and sigh ; 
Saying, Sweetheart ! the old mystery remains, — 
If I am I ; thou, thou ; or thou art I ? 

TO THE SHAH. 

FROM HAFIZ. 

Thy foes to hunt, thy enviers to strike down. 
Poises Arcturus aloft morning and evening his 
spear. 

TO THE SHAH. 

FROM ENWERI. 

Not in their houses stand the stars. 
But o'er the pinnacles of thine I 



TRANSLATIONS. 203 

TO THE SHAH. 

FROM ENWERI. 

From thy worth and weight the stars gravitate, 
And the equipoise of heaven is thy house's equi- 
poise. 

SONG OF SEID NIMETOLLAH OF KUHISTAN. 

[Among the religious customs of the dervishes is an astronom- 
ical dance, in which the dervish imitates the movements of the 
heavenly bodies, by spinning on his own axis, whilst at the same 
time he revolves round the Sheikh in the centre, representing the 
sun ; and, as he spins, he sings the Song of Seid Nimetollah of 
Kuhi'Uan.] 

Spin the ball ! I reel, I burn, 
Nor head from foot can I discern, 
Nor my heart from love of mine, 
Nor the wine-cup from the wine. 
All my doing, all my leaving. 
Reaches not to my perceiving ; 



204 TRANSLATIONS. 

Lost m wnirling spheres I rove, 
And know only that I love. 

I am seeker of the stone, 
Living gem of Solomon ; 
From the shore of souls arrived, 
In the sea of sense I dived ; 
But what is land, or what is wave. 
To me who only jewels crave ? 
Love is the air-fed fire intense, 
And my heart the frankincense ; 
As the rich aloes flames, I glow, 
Yet the censer cannot know. 
I 'm all-knowing, yet unknowing ; 
Stand not, pause not, in my going. 

Ask not me, as Muftis can, 
To recite the Alcoran ; 
Well I love the meaning sweet, — 
I tread the book beneath my feet. 



TRANSLATIONS. 205 

Lo ! tho God's love blazes higher, 
Till all difference expire. 
What are Moslems ? what are Giaours ? 
All are Love's, and all are ours. 
I embrace the true believers, 
But I reck not of deceivers. 
Firm to Heaven my bosom clings. 
Heedless of inferior things ; 
Down on earth there, underfoot, 
What men chatter know I not. 



THE END. 



Cambridge : Stereotyped and Printed by Welch, Bigelow, & Ca 



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